High Humidity

The air conditioner quit with a rattling cough

leaving the room to the mercy of July.

I took the grey shirt and the cotton socks off

and watched the thermometer climb toward the sky.

A single drop of water, heavy and slow,

travels down my arm like a cold, silver bead.

It stalls at the wrist with nowhere to go,

a leak from a body that has everything it needs.

I’m staining the sofa with a damp, dark V,

shedding my salt on the velvet and wood.

It’s a quiet way of dissolving, you see,

to let out the liquid I never understood.