The air crackles, thick

With the smell of chargrilled burgers

As children scream, sprinklers

Chasing them around back gardens,

Knowing there’s no school tomorrow,

Just an endless run of days

Each kissed by sun aggressively,

It burns with such ferocious force

That only mad dogs and those Englishmen

Will play on fields no longer green

But scorched an ugly brown

The only respite found is underneath

Those weeping willows, casting shade

As little toes splash in the shallows

Wishing that they could wade deeper in

Escaping heat that quickly eats us whole.