The Torrid Zone
{An Umbrella Special Feature}


Gail White

lives in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, where she is working to make rhyme the dominant style of poetry again.

She edited the anthology Kiss and Part and her new book, Easy Marks, is just out from Word Tech Press.


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Fire Sermon

In the spongy Louisiana summers
our air-conditioned rooms
seal us off as effectively
as Dante’s fiery tombs
confined the dead. In bygone days
fans kept away the flies
while deep verandas and twelve-foot ceilings
let the burning rise.

By August, every step outdoors
is penance. The leaden cope
of humid weather presses
the lungs. Hair turns to rope
and Heat, the summer devil
whose name is legion, lies
under the pavement singing
Let the burning rise.

Eventually the body
becomes too hot to wear.
We bury the dead above ground,
hoping to give them air.
The crumbling bones are swept away
and the names on tombs are lies.
Let me ride in the boat of Osiris.
Let the burning rise.



 
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