Court House Square. Humidity 98%

Haze so thick the sun diffuses.

We’ve nothing in common

except the sluggish plume of smoke

that refuses to rise from a cigarette,

the cotton shirt stuck to the small of a back,

the gesture of one brown leaf falling prematurely

from one skeletal tree,

etched into the square’s singed grass

like justice.

Court house square in Eureka, Illinois

on a very hot summer afternoon