Sonnet 18 / In a Hot Country (Anne Cammon Fiero)

Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

In a hot country
A languid afternoon
in heat
that feels like summer.

I turn on the fan and stretch
across the bed. Listening
to its subtle crooked whir,
I wonder if fans
become unscrewed
from their hinges.

Through the thin rectangular screen,
I watch the same tree
I’ve watched
for months.

Though as always with spring in a hot country
it seems the leaves have burst like flames
upon branches
that appeared as though dead.

In a hot country © Anne Cammon Fiero (used with permission)