Drought

Mostly written while running today. Internally.
I am proud of this poem's longest line.

Drought

At 6:30 pm, I don a red tank,
polyester, stiff with sweat-salt.
A 1992 Kokomo Relays white-mesh
baseball cap.

It is 95-degrees.
75-percent humidity.

Stepping outside is like squeezing
into a teenage girl's khakis.
Nuts pressed into your leg
tighter than a bad tattoo.

It's hotter than a rattlesnake's asshole.

Midway through the jog,
It begins to rain.
At first, scarce drops,
are hotter than my body.

"Fuck you," I say to the sky.
The sky is smarmy,
ignores my complaint,
slaps hot, stinging beads of water
down on me at random.

I wonder if, in the stratosphere,
birds are pissing on me.

Do birds piss?

When the rain hits the pavement,
yards in-front of a charging city bus,
it sizzles in petroleum puddles,
I can smell its foul steam.

Like barbecue smoked in gasoline.