it's too hot to go outside,
the mother tells her child,
but the child is just a toddler
and she sees a squirrel,
and a dragonfly that bounces off the cement blocks
that make a path in their backyard,
and a blue jay that she can identify
because her dad wears a moseby blue jay jersey
on the weekends that he refers to as his lounging shirt,
the child wonders where the birds', squirrels', and dragonflies' mothers
to tell them that it's way too hot to go
outside, so maybe they will come inside
and she'll have a friend or two while
the summer whiles away
Fred Aiken Writing 