Four Poems

A Parking Lot in West Houston
Angels are unthinkable
in hot weather.

Except in some tropical locales, where
from time to time, the women catch one in their nets,

hang it to dry, and fashion it into a lantern
which will bum forever on its own inexhaustible oils.

But here - shins smocked with heat rash,
the supersaturated air. We no longer believe

in energies pure enough not to carry heat.
Nor in connections - the thought of someone

somewhere warming the air we breathe
that one degree more…

In a packed pub during the World Cup final,
a bony redhead woman gripped my arm
...