Looking For Roscoe

As summer days go, it's a
true scorcher, all right,
nary a whisper of wind
and the sun sitting high and
regal, lording it over the
vast blue, unclouded sky.

The very air suffocates in
the humid, breath-stifling
aura of summer's dog days.
Long forgotten the icily frigid
days of peak winter when
warmth seemed unattainable.

There is some relief to be had
within the haven of the forest
environs with its wide ribbon of
stagnant, turgid water, where
birds fly low, looping the air to
catapult low-hanging branches.

Above, riding a bicycle on the
forest trail, a dark, thick-set man
not to be met at such a solitary
secluded place, frantically searching
for his wayward, relief-seeking
brown, heat-exhausted dog.