FORTY-FIVE

When the mercury touches forty-five
You think that you might die,
You wipe a sweat trail from your brow
Then swat away a fly.

When the bitumen begins to melt
And stick beneath your shoes,
You pray for a return to winter
With its cold and rain, and flu.

When you feel that you are melting
Within your living room,
The voice upon the television
Fills your heart with gloom:

“The weather will continue fine,”
Is his sick, perverted joke,
And all your dreams of coolness
Fled when the bastard spoke.

You run a cold bath for relief
And dive headfirst in it,
You take a book and reading glasses
And soak for three hundred minutes.

When you get out at 7 PM
It seems the air itself is on fire,
Soon you’re dripping wet again
This time as you perspire.

And by 7:30 PM you’re fouler
Than before you had your bath,
As new record temperatures soar
You pray to God summer won’t last.

It’s forty-four one day, then it’s forty-five
You find yourself near melting again,
And soon the penny starts to drop
This hellish summer may never end.

With global warming going overtime
New record temperatures are oft-times set,
And no matter how high predictions go
The predictions are always ready met.

No end’s insight to summertime
And again we have a forty-plus day,
And as often as we might pray to God
The summer sun won’t go away.

So we’re soaking in our own foulness
And longing for the colder times,
When winter freezes our marrow hard
And brings with it much cooler climes.

THE END
© Copyright 2021 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia