I'm steeping

Summer

I steep
in its cauldron.
These are days not swallowed
before they breathe.
Their evenings bridge
toward morning, one motion,
a splendid indolence,
a long novel.
This season's not
bound in batting;
it thunders
through thin linen.
I am a slow cooking roast;
by the end of August
my center will be warm
but still red.

By Natasha Saje


As I was sitting by the pool in Arizona last week, the first lines of this poem came to mind. Isn't this the best metaphor for that unbreathable kind of heat? "I steep in its cauldron." I became a slow-cooked roast that day.