Rolling around in the doldrums of summer here, a lazy unwinding late July day. The heat is so very different here than on the prairies; it carries water and salt from the sea. My thirsty skin craves moisture, so I find this type of heat a balm. I don’t need to slather on so much hand cream here, as I did in the prairies, where a dry cracked wind always seemed to find me in any morsel of shade.
Of course, riding my bike a thin layer of sweat coats my skin, and I get to work sticky and red and hot, and I long to plunge into the icy sea in the inner harbour, rather than work. I can hear the American ferries boom when they trawl into the docks, and it makes me shiver with travel lust.
That sound always makes me remember taking the ferries from the mainland to the island, when I was a child, and usually I’d have a new book to read, or a comic, or sticky hard candy to glut my sweet tooth on. The outer deck used to be too cold for me, but I’d sit by the window and watch the sea and the sky and the thickly clotted islands pass. The decks where the cars were kept were always so quiet, and I never realized until recently that they are not closed in. The windows have no glass, and the railings are crusted and sticky with salt, and cold from the sea spray. Eventually, I would try to brave the icy windy outer decks, because one parent or the other would be leaning over the railings, hair blowing madly, watching some minuscule speck on the horizon with a pair of huge black binoculars. They’d go “Look! There, do you see?” and hand me the binos, and I’d look dutifully, but I was never sure what I was meant to be seeing, so I’d just make some appropriate murmur and hand them back.
The part that I hated and loved the most was when they would announce we were close to our destination and would we make our way back to the vehicles, and we’d all sit in the still warm air and wait until the ferry nudged into port. The anticipation of driving off into a new place, full of summer and sun and swimming and sand was so desired I could never really sit still. I remember a huge grin splitting my face and I was bouncing on the seat one time, as we rumbled from the belly of the ferry into a welcoming sunshine.
I
Melt
onto the parched
patio
I fan fan fan
Me
Wishing to waft away
away
These unbearable
Lazy sighing
Lagging-tongue
Dog Days
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