The Heat of it All

New Prompt!


Your husband’s boss and his wife love to go to the desert.

Lucky you -- both and your husband (or wife)

get invited to join them for the weekend.

What is the trip like?



THE HEAT OF IT ALL! (20 lines)

Soaring rippling, crunchy, suffocating heat-swirls blast
through my windpipe as I manage a last gulp of
fresh, normal air and life, before embarking on
our surprise desert get-away
with your boss and his family.

The heat of the bright day and the intensity
of the expectations of congeniality
drown my once-hopeful vacationing spirit in a thicket
of dry thoughts influenced only
by the parching indoor-outdoor heat
of our shared desert cabin,

Bathed in simulated air conditioning, our small cabin
provides enough awkward togetherness on this trip
to be stifling and uncomfortable by its very existence,
never mind its actual air temperature!

Not close with this couple—your boss and his wife—
I am not certain whether and what any of us thought about this
orchestrated getaway, this retreat from normalcy
with two souls so unlike us in temperament and passions.

It’s going to be a long hot one out here in the heat of it all,