Heat

You think I would be untrue,
you think i would be a liar,
if I were to say to you
that your swimming pool is on fire.

But it actually and factually is.
In flames like a burning pyre,
incandescent like a Roman candle,
your swimming pool is on fire.

For your beautiful daughter is bathing.
Her legs and breasts I admire.
As long as she is burning within it,
Your swimming pool is on fire!”

‘Heat’ appears in:
Michael Byrne 2010, A Man of Emails, Ginninderra Press, Port Adelaide. ISBN 1 74027 603 0
Alan Wearne (ed.) 2009, The Best Australian Poetry 2009, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane. ISBN 978 0 7022 3736 2
Michael Byrne 2008, ‘Heat,’ Quadrant, vol LII, issue 3
The first stanza of ‘Heat’ paraphrases the first verse of a song by The Doors called ‘Light my Fire.’ Acknowledgement is made to the songwriter Robby Krieger.