A hot day around the water cooler

too hot to work

It was her turn to say it as the air bubble glugged,
we had already agreed it was too hot to breathe
without making your top lip sweat.
Her mind had melted flowers down one arm,
they wrapped around a bright blue bird,
far too still for it to be real, it rippled with each sip.

We didn’t think she was allowed to
but the window opened anyway.
Closing her eyes she made the breeze
find us, lifting our dog heads
to sniff the open quarter-light,
a brief promenade, wheeled out
on fresh air computer chairs.

Salamanders scurried to her ankles
hot-boxed and dusty on prison yard feet.
Screw this heat, tweeted the blue bird,
carried by daisy-chains over the office wall.
The warders accused me of helping her escape
and confined me to a spread sheet.
Secretly I embedded a text,
just to pretend that I had.