Siegfried and Roy

Humid today and the clouds drift
like melted ice cubes in the tea-colored
sky. Could I be a tea bag steeping

in the tall heat that withers even
the street signs like flowers? Listen
to the weathermen long enough

and they start to sound like marks taken
in a street hustle with Nature. Who knows
how the weather’ll behave when

the seasons intrude on one another,
the way the brain intrudes on the body
when endorphins are unleashed

to overthrow the kingdom of pain inside us,
or inside the brothas wincing gotdamn! at
Cola-colored women whose sweet scents

mingle in the breath of something wild,
what meteorologists can’t quite command.
Listen to them long enough and they become

exotic entertainers, snapping their whips
before their miscues come back to bite them,
awakening that inner kingdom.