Iron Rain

On Azrala, our year is incredibly brief --
the length of a single day on Earth.
There's a downside to so short a year, 
one that offsets singing "Happy Birthday"
between each rising and setting of our Sun.
The temperature here hovers at a sultry
3500 Fahrenheit, so hot that iron
boils away as ferrous steam,
condenses into orange clouds
that, in our searing summer months, deluge
our streets, houses, pets, and us
with yellow drops of molten iron rain.

Your blood cells rust red with iron, 
ours with alloys of titanium, tungsten.
Women here are incredibly hot -- one kiss
would melt a ten-pound lead ingot on Earth!
Lead, yes, a silver gas last cooled to liquid
a million years back, in an Ice Age
cold enough to freeze aluminum from our Silver Sea,
burying half of Azrala beneath metal glaciers.

Beyond the heat, life here is really quite mundane.
At the end of a busy day at work, when I'm tired
and stepping off the trolley, this is what I see.

The sky above burns crimson; a hot wind blows;
bright clouds threaten molten iron.
A ceramic street curves smoothly to my left,
shimmering through a blur of heat.
My black suit is neatly pressed and steamed,
creases sharp down my stainless pants.
A brown valise is heavy in my hand, 
not from paperwork, just the case itself.
A black carbon derby perches on my head,
wiry hair glowing, trimmed above the ears,
two hot ember eyes set deep beneath my brow.

Though I'm modest, as a rule, I must confess,
the underwear beneath my carbon clothes
is quite bright, woven of chromium to reflect
the heat with its crinkled mirror shine.

Houses on my street smolder in the Sun,
that blinding white disk filling half our sky.
Thank goodness for dark glasses, and thick creams
with SPF's far higher than anything on Earth.

Our trees are tall and round, with leaves
that rustle with electrostatic sizzle.
In springtime, their purple blossoms burn
with the acrid sweet of ozone, tickling my nose.
Beneath their luminous leaves, orange, yellow, white,
the ground is charred black
from last autumn's conflagration.

Here comes the rain -- I'm still a block from home!
Pardon me while I unfold my umbrella,
heavy with tungsten, bright with shiny pleats.
I love to spin the handle in my stone hand
and skip down the street like a child,
weaving between bubbly, yellow puddles.
Around me, mist hovers in a layer,
glows an inch above the pavement
smelling of rain, iron rain,
on a very, very, very hot summer's day.

Scott Speck
01/14/2003