244. Slippery Dreams

The flash of the scene tickles
the edge of my consciousness,
hours after I lumbered out of bed.
The replay of a dialogue
I cannot place,
with people I do not know
but seem familiar too.
I reach for the memory,
but my fingers trail through smoke
because the dream's already gone.

243. Happy Sounds

The air rushes out of our lungs,
in short bursts,
low huffs,
or higher tinkling sounds
as we gather on a segmented porch
with too loud music
and too few chairs
to sit back and celebrate
and laugh.

242. Autopilot

Some days are the wind's whisper,
the palm frond's rattle,
the morning humidity smell,
the glancing touch of the sun on my forearm,
the way my mouth feels full of foreign words.

Others are days where I reach
to rotate the pan in the oven,
only remembering that it's hot
when the nerves in my fingers
start to scream,
trying desperately to wake me.

241. A Lament for Air Conditioning

The windows rolled down
as we reach one hundred ten,
air punching my face.

240. Guiding Flares

The sun sets in front of us
as we ride down the two lane highway,
the sky turning dusty pink and purple
with a small strip of yellow in between.

As we round a bend,
in the landscape so similar at each turn,
the twin lights appear on the right side,
still distant but near enough to know
we're more than halfway home.

239. Humidity

The air grows heavy with moisture
once the hot sun drops below the horizon
and the wind stops the constant stream
that denotes daytime in the Pilbara.

Our skin is a damp, almost-sticky
feeling that grows more uncomfortable
as we fill up with heavy foods
and great company,
until the weight of the air
seems to pull on our eyelids as well.

Then we leave.
Happy
and weighted
with good things.

238. Crimes of the Spider

The spider lies mere inches from my keyboard,
flat on its back, its disproportionately long legs
curl up to its body and I know it's dead,
slowly starved while inside
or attacked by a small spider
or slipped from the ceiling
and fell too far
for its large body to handle.

I'm more anxious,
trying to scoop up the body
than I was having it cover the room
over my head for a week,
like a guardian
or an omen
or another wild animal
out of its place.

237. The Huntsman

The spider wander
around the room
and I cannot look away,
partly cautious
of huntsman's bite
and partly captivated
at the crime against physics
of a spider so large
walking on the ceiling,
effortless,
confident
as it passes the small spiders
in search of something
to keeps it interest
as it walks around,
upside-
down.

236. Office Air

The crisp air from the ceiling vents,
the foreign touch of short carpet
under the soles of my shoes,
the young people in business clothes,
the inexplicable smell of an office

immediately take me from this desert
in the Outback
to the small half-office
I shared with a case of mailboxes
and a never-there intern
for one West Virginia summer.

235. Layers of Heat

All day, the heat lies

like a sun-soaked wool blanket 

prickling my skin.