Avoiding Bad Luck

The summer has found her way back,
like a rotten little sister
we tried to ditch at the mall
but she is here, again,
pampered and stamping her foot
threatening to tell.

And the humidity is soaking
my skull
and the hardwood floors
are drying out my feet till they itch.
My bones are splitting,
yellow marrow and cracked gray
every part of me is hot like I’ve been
pulled from an oven,

but this morning
there was a letter
telling me about my father,
that little has changed
that there was some growth
but also some shrinking
that the nurse says that the doctor
will say to come back
in 3 months
and I remember
that we have been riding
this wave of Luck, with a capital L, for years now,

so I walk a little softer this morning
hoping to pass through my days
unnoticed,
creeping across the back drop
so that Bad Luck doesn’t see me
making a ruckus
and crying about the weather
and she doesn’t give me something
bigger to cry about.