Issue 29, Winter '12

Hot Heat Blues

by Matthew Kaberline • • Issue 2 • 03.03.2006

Sun, who asked you
To sizzle all kinds
Of sinister on us?

Sear solid ground
Like a T-bone steak,
Like skillet cakes?

Sun, you got me hot
Under the collar, hot
Enough to break

Eggs and whisk, whisk,
‘Cause the yolks, well,
They look like you.

Fans ain’t no good,
Throwing batches
Of our breath back

In our sweat greased
Faces, while ice melts
Away like minutes, but

We defeat you—
Air Con-di-tion-ing,
Holy jackpot of cool

Breezes freezes our sticky
Selves. Sun, how do you like
My seventy degrees?

Matthew Kaberline

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Born in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, Matthew Kaberline moved to the suburbs of Washington D.C. when he was five years old. Matthew studied Political Science and English at Virginia Tech, graduating in 2003 with a BA.  He is currently pursuing an MFA in poetry at Emerson College, and has a poem forthcoming in Tar River Poetry. An enthusiast of the blues, soul, and Motown, Matthew is working on a sequence of elegies to soul singers including Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, and Otis Redding.  He is excited to be published in Fringe and laughs every time he reads their catchphrase. Matthew would like to thank his parents for being so understanding when he turned down that scholarship to law school.