_38. Poem for Heat

Sunday morning in a big, bulky Chinese city
I have a hangover
and the gentlemen down the street are setting off
low grade explosives
whose echoing reports from neighboring skyscrapers
are alarming;
we can hope that they are fireworks
(why not, after all, set off fireworks
at ten am on a Sunday)
The smog is thick today, and I can only see
a few buildings down from the window.
“Hunan is famous for three things,”
they told me last night,
“hot food, hot temperatures, hot girls.”
It’s ninety three,
the snake I ate for dinner
was so hot I couldn’t more than nibble,
and the women, well,
I think I blew that
when I threw up on her shoes last night.