Leaving the pup's leash behind,
went for an evening jog.
More for exercise, not simple locomotion.
Smoldering, muggy, hazy air
thick with humidity and previous athletes' respiration.
Twilight or dusk,
only the first is a sexy movie.
Both are the time of day too dark
to go without reflective gear.
Except here.
Quiet streets lined with sidewalks where I call home:
S. Columbia Drive, Derrydown Way, Heathermore, Missionary Ave--
eclectic Irish street names,
peppered with the next morning's recycling.
"PAY AS YOU THROW" in seafoam, butter, and tarp-blue bags,
The Christmas-colored bins with milk jugs and beer bottles,
Tide and Downey,
organic strawberries, eggs, yogurt cartons.
Cardboard once nestled
chicken breasts
Ramen
Coke Zero
indicating our choosy Decaturite's product preferences.
The night-blooming jasmine bursts into my palette's scent,
its olefactory glory
drawing attention to the
stubby rosemary
climbing cucumbers
daylilies not faded even at evening
tigerlilies with freckled cheek petals
petunias draping over sidewalks.
Ipod buds rooted deeply in my ear canals,
"chicka rockas" playlist of
Shakira, Wreckers, Anna Nalick
serenading my straining steps.
The volume saves me from stopping to speak:
nosy neighbor needs a
wave, grin, and nod pointing to my cords to
cut him off quietly
Earbuds bloom again,
leaving only the waves of others--
Cute beagle leashed by a homely housewife...
Ugly shepherd leashed by a cute guy.
The misty air holds Southern mystery...
No Spanish moss of Swashbuckling Savannah,
no coasts of Charming Charleston,
no nightlife of Noisy New Orleans.
But mystery in the air East of Atlanta in Darling Decatur.
Lightning bugs punctuating the pretentious haze,
swarms of gnats dance near cypress trees.
Thanks to nervous parents' fear of West Nile,
mosquito spraying neatly prevents any interactions
with the poisonous pests.
But the heat,
the glorious, mysterious, thick-aired heat...
has meant that jogging for exercise,
not just locomotion,
makes for an evening's jog in June
to be a walk in Decatur.
