When the summer sun carves
a boiling trough across my back,
I think of reaching through heavy air
and grasping a silver handle,
letting water drawn
from the deeplake grow
cool across my index finger.
It seems, though, that it
will never quite chill enough
to fill completely whatever hole
the concentrated sunlight bore through my flesh
even if it were to freeze down
the spout, cracking arthriticfingers
gripping my hand in ice
and even if that ice were
the deepest lumbering glacier
and I could suck each melting drop
directly from it
And just that attempt would cause my teeth
to chatter and crack, a soft
sprinkling rain of bonemeal.