Southern Gothic,
El Paso

It's hot enough here

for fruit to swell

and sweat

and insects to feed

on the beads.

Heat like tinnitus -

a buzzing malice

weighting the air -

the weather meaner

than the proceeds of a church plate.

A saggy-bottomed cat -

toothless and

orange as a sage fire -

limps towards the shade

nursing thoughts of murder

while the sun

pounds its fists

on each man and his dog,

causing strays of both kinds

to stumble on rock-hard mud -

on dust and shale

with flint-sharp edges -

on rusty dreams

burned clean of hope,

like a long-regretted tattoo.