In Heat

July 16 2011

That high buzzing sound

of summer.

On hot afternoons, when nothing moves

in wilting jungle heat.

When sun

penetrates everything

with super-heated rays.

Pinning us down

to this sultry surface,

like a lepidopterist

his tropical butterflies

above their Latin names.

We were kids

in this longed-for season,

no longer giddy

with freedom,

growing bored

in the doldrums of heat.

And would have sworn

it was electricity, leaking out.

Sagging wires

fried.

Today, I heard it again,

and realized

just how long.

So where

have the cicadas gone?

Or was it me,

too busy to hear?

It’s the males, who make this sound

outrageously loud,

tiny bugs

rubbing hard body-parts

rough.

Doing what all men do

in summer heat   —

preening their fitness,

seeking conquest

and company.

Proclaiming “my territory”.

In the muscle car, with the roof down.

On the patch of beach

on hot white sand.

In the back row

in the velveteen seats

in an air-conditioned theatre

in the dark.

There is electricity

in the air,

attracting its opposite charge.

But now

only soft body parts

will touch.

This poem began exactly as the poem has it:  sitting outside, in a quiet place, on a hot summer afternoon. I heard a single cicada call, then waited for another that never came. Which is when I realized how unfamiliar this sound has become:  a sound that is such an organic and essential part of hot summer afternoons. Has our built environment become too toxic for these insects? Or is there too much noise and distraction?

Anyway, I put down the first line, and went on to describe the extraordinary heat we’ve been having. The rest of the poem wrote itself. I’m not sure if the lepidopterist/butterfly thing works, or not. The idea is the feeling of utter stagnation and immobility when it’s this hot, when the unobstructed sun is so remorselessly fierce. And I like the idea of rendering us as insects, which in a way foreshadows the shift that comes later, when mating cicadas become frustrated teenage boys.  I had no idea that all this “heat” would lead to the double entendre of the eventual title. But after all, it is a mating sound. And don’t we all seem to be in “heat” this time of year?

The call-back to electricity and body parts is what makes this poem work so well – if it works at all, that is. And I was very pleased to come up with the clever double entendre of that deceptively simple title. I think it cinches the poem tight. Stridulation was an alternate title. That’s the biological term for this rubbing of insect body parts to produce a sound:  not just cicadas, but grasshoppers clicking as well. I like exotic technical words like that:  I think they can act as billboards, attracting curious readers to a poem. But ultimately, I went with In Heat, which is really quite irresistible.

Another thing I had to resist was trying to describe the sound:  the alien hair-raising crescendo that seems to singe the air. But I didn’t think I could do it justice. And I found myself getting bogged down in too many words:  I could just see the reader’s eyes glazing over, his mind wandering. No, I thought, everyone is familiar with this sound. So trust the reader to reach into his own memory for it. And after all, in poetry, isn’t less always more?