It’s hot here in Gutenberg Land.
As in
hot, hot, hot
hot.
Which is the sound feet make
when walking on melting tar,
hot, hot, hot,
hot,
all the while jumping large holes
made in the surfacing
by cars
trying to avoid the newly instituted
“park the sides of the street full,
and you get automatic slowed traffic.”
Slowed.
So the kids,
home from school,
can toss the neighbor’s cat in the tar,
which you have to pull out,
put it, in blanket and gym bag
in the tram,
“what on earth are you doing to that cat?”
as you head,
hotly,
to the vet.
Who charges you 92, 50 Euros to clean the fur,
and call the hysterical neighbor that her cat is ok.
Which is,
unfortunately,
the exact moment when you look at your feet.
And recognize
you are wearing special,
high duty,
hiking sandals,
specially molded through years of careful wear,
to exactly the perfect healthy support for—
about three pounds of tar,
which have slooowwwlllyyy
oozed into…
you get the picture.
After which, you leave above-mentioned cat for observance-
“we’ll send you the rest of the bill later…”
swallow the cat’s sedation yourself,
and try to remember what that fleeting picture was-
the one that has been buzzing right in front of your eyeballs for the last ten minute-,
accompanied by that bizarre whoosing tone you hear on the original Star Trek
as the Enterprize passes that Vulcan tar pit,
and the (still at that point evil) Klingons
fight them,
in an attempt to defend their captured Vulcan Tar Pit
decontamination baths.
Baths.
That was it.
Baths.
Full of turpentine
and Borax,
which we had to sit in each night
after coming home after school,
and playing on the next street over-
which was continuously,
to the intense dislike-
understanding, yes, but intense dislike,
of the local parents,
being tarred,
so that the ambulances,
in the hot, hot, hot
hot
heat of the Illinois prairie,
didn’t get stuck
on their way to the hospital,
in the same stuff
the cat
got stuck in.
Now all I have to do is find some Borax.
Wasn’t it Ronald Reagan
raised on the Illinois Prairie,
broadcast journalist from the University of Illinois,
who used to sell the stuff?
I wonder if there’s still a backlog bag of it around somewhere?
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Quahog on a Tightrope 