The Heat of The Evening, by Olivia Cantadori

Who barred the limestone door?

And will he never come again?

And won’t it ever be again?

Is it rue for you, or for me too?

Umbrellas in the road, the rain

Comes hard this April on

Main Street. All smells of

Rubber and I remember

The ants crawling on your legs.

Those ants lodged in the crevice

Of calves, lapping up orange juice

As gently you carved the fruit.

Have you carried them with you?

A thousand crawling impatiences?

Or have you let them wash away

As the dirt and the

Day washes away

From my bare arms in this heat of

Rain.

The doors of this city won’t open.

I walk into walls of pure sheet.

Water is a body and a body crossed,

Unmoving. The cars drive through

Walls of flood. Horns sound through

The gurgles of time

Like the deft wailing of your mouth

That became four walls of black,

Slick and sticky and full of rage.

I ran out of it into the city,

Street

Filling and emptying with

Endless, meaningless feet.

Ah, the fear

The fear,

Trembling.

Against the stone

And nothing shifts to let me in

And nothing shifts to be let go

And out here I grow still and cold.

— Olivia Cantadori