The Devil Losses His Teeth in the South
written by: Julie A Niven
The first of August
and the clouds thicken like flour in soup,
something we don’t eat much of
in the summer in the south,
and a sign of something had less often, rain,
a wish as common as sweat under our collars,
an occurrence so scarce and fleeting
that we don’t dare talk of it too seriously,
superstitious that wanting it too much
might scare it off as readily
as wanting it just badly enough
might bring it on.
It must be 10 degrees cooler than usual today
with the clouds and the dangling promise of rain.
A local on his beat parks legal
in a lot signed No Parking. I watch
through half-closed blinds. Half hidden
by a white-washed wall, he waits
as the traffic passes.
The rain waits, holds back, teases us
like a letter seen through the cut brass design
of a neighbor’s mailbox for which we have
immense curiosity but no key.
A bluejay whines in the branches of a nearby pine
while sweat beads up behind my knees and trickles in large drops
down my calves to the wood floor.
The sun breaks through later in the afternoon,
bright, hard, and shining white hot
like the toothy smile of the devil himself.
Finally, when the rain begins,
it’s like those teeth being pulled one by one
to drop with a metallic sound on my window unit
While one by one we come to our windows to watch
- The Devil Losses His Teeth in the South - August 18, 2024
