| Summer Diet by Richard Cecil | ||
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That two pound bag of pretzels in the kitchen calls out in vain for me to plunge my hands in, and with my study door closed I can't hear the tin foil muffled cries of chocolate cake begging to be let out of the icebox or the whimperings of peanut M&Ms, trapped inside the cat-shaped candy jar meant to discourage nibbling by mice, to please come lift its lid and scoop them up. All voices in the house are swallowed by the purring of the central air conditioner inhaling August & puffing out October. It's 68 in here; I'm shivering, though outside it's so hot that the cicadas ceaselessly sing chainsaw arias. It's easy to learn how they make that racket: "Vibrating membranes under their abdomens," but why do their small bellies scream so loudly? Is it because, though hungry, they refuse to stuff themselves with green, delicious leaves, preferring to slim down to hollow shells, golden brown, glued to the bark of trees? Or are they so tormented by the heat that they cry to the birds, "Come! Eat me!" Either way, they sing my belly's song: deeper than the instinct to survive must run the instinct to be cool and thin; we won't shut up until we're skeletons. _________________________________________________________________________ RICHARD CECIL'S
third collection of poems, IN SEARCH OF
THE GREAT DEAD, |
