This is part nine of a ten-part poem entitled Refilling The Mirrors : The Reciprocity of Stasis, which explores several poetic forms as they control various expressions of emotion.
 

The dots of sweat
On the blue back of your blouse
Between your shoulder blades
Taper down along your spine
From the shoulders’ strong triangle at the top
Along a narrow, supple, central line
To widen again above your waist.
An hourglass of sweat on a woman’s shirt-back.
Your hair as you walk away
Slaps dully against your humid neck.
The heat is a separate element
The air is twice as thick as normal
The sky is bleary, smudged, gelid
And everybody’s breath is labored.
Your cranky heat personality is well hidden
Beneath a sunny surface
But it cracks whenever
Another droplet rolls down your temple
To your jaw.
And I, the witness, the observer
Cannot move at all
As I wait for another
To touch you instead
With heat not of this world.