So Hot

So hot, no trip to stores, 
groans about daily chores.
Prays for rains, even if it pours. 

No stove top cooking for days.
Any fire is painful to gaze.
Microwaved dishes amaze.

The cool artificial air,
modern men's welfare,
as indispensable as dental care.

But I dream of the old bamboo mat, 
patterned and flat,
printing marks on your arm and face people will jeer at. 

Palms wet, 
hair soaked with sweat,
sleeping in a mosquito net. 

My memory of the old summer time,
in a subtropical clime.
Not really sublime,
but my heart chimes in an inexplicable rhyme.