103 Degrees

by Olivia Rose Umstead





I have never understood why

people find those winter

months so romantic, when

body heat

is not a want but a need.

It is not intimate to wear men like

baggy sweatshirts.

I will tell you about real intimacy-

It was one of those stick-your-head-in-a-freezer

days. It was hot dogs dripping of Dijon,

khakis dodging chocolate soft serve droplets.

Feet flying down the street, kindled by bodies that became

superhuman when school ended.

It was the whites of eyes churning, gazing up at

Ferris Wheels scraping the sky.

Cokes sipped from straws spiraling in loop de loops,

and Coppertone suffocating nostrils.

We were melting in heat like Popsicles,

swarming with strangers in herds like cattle.

One of those drench-yourself-in-a-lawn

sprinkler-to-stay-alive days,

that first day of summer when the

June beetles scurried

into San Bernardino soil.

And my breath was softer.

Lungs empty at last.

That day, our stripped

sun-soaked skin alone

was hotter than a

car with a broken radiator.

And risking heatwave,

we chose each other still.





back to University & College Poetry Prizes