Stimulus

I’m a furnace,
perimenopausal,
in Florida
heat index: 126

Long to skip daily
walk, but it’s good
for heart, brain, soul

So I go. Then marvel
as a man, at least 70,
blows right past me

I’m walking, ambling
He’s running, sweat
pours, stains his gray
T-shirt. I hear smack…
smack…smack…

He’s high-fiving each
green lamppost as he
passes, unaware how
he, himself, scatters light

Photo by Sarah Cervantes on Unsplash

Written by 

Paula R. Hilton explores the immediacy of memory and how our most important relationships define us. Her work has appeared in Feminine Collective, The Sunlight Press, Writing In A Woman’s Voice, The Tulane Review, and many others. Her poetry collection, At Any Given Second, was selected by Kirkus as one of its best books of 2021. She earned an MFA from the University of New Orleans.

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