Dog Days

Star condor near dawn
Made of Orion
For torso, Rigel
The tail, Betelgeuse
The head, Sirius

The down wing’s tip, and
Aldebaran top
Wing point—one giant
Formation fading
In flight to sunrise.

The dog days are back,
Hottest since July,
The sky bone white, bone
Dry, heat warnings out
Across the desert.

You can turn your back
On human events,
Or you can face them
And forget the world.
It’s hard to do both.

A young coworker’s
Hospitalized with
Blood clots in the lungs,
Few constellations
In the ICU.