The heat-dome trundles in like a tumbril
lugging 98 degrees. Men are laying asphalt
in the courthouse parking lot, smell
my drug of choice in childhood, tincture
of summer, intoxicating toxin of tar.
I want to summon the ice cream truck for them
with its salutary jingle and chill. Is it still
rumbling round on Willow Lane
in after-school hours? Or divert a mountain rill
to ripple between the marble columns
down the marble steps to cool their feet.
We share a co-misery of heat this July
that tamps our civic feuds and ardors.
In the deep south, men in kilts stride the lobby
of the Grand Bohemian Hotel—of course they do.
This makes us unreasonably happy.
Boston is learning La Marseillaise,
dining on Fufu and practicing The Wave.
The possibility of joy backspins between us.
Even sad souls without Spanish
now know the meaning of pausa de hydratacion.
Hometowns are parade-ready,
balconies skirted in red, white, and blue.
The French assume it is for them, and why not?
World Cup is a feast for all fools and fans.
We all have sibling-skin in this game.
A much-published bi-national immigrant, gardener, Bonsai-grower, painter, Jennifer M Phillips has lived in five states, two countries, and now, with gratitude, in Wampanoag ancestral land on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Her chapbooks: Sitting Safe In the Theatre of Electricity (i-blurb.com, 2020) and A Song of Ascents (Orchard Street Press, 2022), and Sailing To the Edges (Finishing Line Press, forthcoming 2025). Two of Phillips' poems were nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her collection is Wrestling With the Angel (Wipf & Stock).
