No Air

It is over 90°F;
I refuse to turn
the air conditioner on.
I open the windows,
and a hot breath of a breeze
bisects the room.

I remember
my Mom and Aunt Joann’s room,
where I stretch across their bed
and watch the same breeze
flutter dawn-bleached voile curtains
against window sashes.

I daydream local history over wheat and soybeans
framed by peonies, lilacs, green baking apple trees,
the old outhouse propped up
with a rusting cast iron headboard,
and the pair of cottonwoods
that mark the center of the section.

Grandma is downstairs cooking roast beef,
sweet corn, and small red potatoes
Grandpa dug up this morning
when it was cool;
supper smells mix with grace
and heat-aroused mustiness
of ancestral photographs
in the steamer trunk at my feet.