July prompt: write about heat. Any form, 20 lines or fewer

[AustinTheory18]

This month's prompt is a single word, heat. Take it anywhere you like, the literal summer kind, an argument, a fever, a kitchen, embarrassment, a city at night. The constraint is 20 lines maximum, and any form is welcome from strict sonnets to free verse to a haiku if you are feeling economical

To get things moving, here is a rough one from me, posted in the spirit of going first so nobody else has to be the first to be brave

The tarmac gives it back at dusk,
all day it held its tongue.
Windows open onto other windows,
someone's radio, someone's argument,
the fan just moving the same air around
like a thought you cannot put down

Critique rules as always, comment on the poem not the poet, and if you want detailed feedback say so, otherwise replies should lean encouraging. Twenty lines, one word, off you go

[GoldbergFan_X]

The fan line is doing a lot of work there and I mean that as a compliment. Mine incoming this weekend

[NeverQuitRoss81]

Heat as an argument is such rich ground. Immediately drafting something about a silence at a dinner table

[Amber90]

Haiku entry: pavement shimmer bends / the street I have walked for years / into somewhere new

[Aura49]

That is lovely. The bending of the familiar is exactly what the good heat poems get at

[Ellie_28]

Question, does a poem about cold count if it is really about the absence of heat? Asking as someone who only writes winter

[LivMorgan]

Absence of the thing is still the thing, that is half of poetry. Write your cold poem

[ReacherBadger]

Respectfully disagree, prompts work because of the constraint. Save the winter poem for January and stretch yourself

[TheGreatMoney]

Someone had to be the formalist and I am glad it was not me this month

[Anvil]

First time posting a poem anywhere, please be kind, it is about my grandmother's kitchen in August

[Sookie]

Kitchen poems about grandmothers are undefeated on this board. Post it, we do not bite