The Equator

“Here, have a sunflower seed on me,” she said
as she passed the tiny nutty flavored treasure to her friend.
She took it with her dirty fingers and mulled it over in her hand,
turning it over and over in her palm
before placing it in her mouth and smiling.
“Mmm” she said, “much better.”

“After all, it is summer, you know, sunflowers and all.”

“I hate summer,” she said with half closed sad eyes.
“I wish it would go away, the year before last was the worst,           
I can never sleep, it’s too hot, and that’s when the insanity always
seems to set it, people just go crazy, the world goes crazy,
and people seem to die in these months, people you love.”
She slumped down in the wooden chair that was too low
to the ground, but nicely cushioned.

“Well you always have the option of moving back and forth
each year, between the northern and southern hemisphere, that way
you could have an eternal winter–until that it is, you come to hate winter too.”

“Sigh” and she said nothing more again until the seasons changed.

~Jenny