Cirrus@Austlit

'It was summer when I began to love Cecily. Leaves curled. Shoulders were brindled and browned. Asphalt melted and stuck to the soles of old sandals. Heat came up from the pores in the pavement and down from the bluewhite sky. Everything smelled. The wind was burnt and bodies were saltysour with sweat. Trams moved slowly. The air was denser, gelatinous, you had to push through the thick of it. When it was dry, the heat sucked you up from the inside, drinking the wetness of you, so you were left crisp and fragile like cicada skin. When it was wet, the heat was drowning...' (Publication abstract)