Cicadas bear down with a slow,
rainy song. They draw me
like a nomad tracking fresh weather.
I walk the dusty porch, breathing
ninety degrees of rain
blowing through the canebrake.
Inside, medallioned chandeliers
and cornices of shepherds
offer only cool embroidery
on the hummings of a hot season.
Ceilings rise, vent to skylights,
as if starlight were an answer
to this summer of closet air.

Katherine Soniat
from her book Cracking Eggs
University of Central Florida Press, 1990

used with permission of the poet