Angels are unthinkablein hot weather except in some tropical locales, wherefrom time to time, the women catch one in their nets, hang it dry, and fashion it into a lanternthat will burn forever on its own inexhaustible oils. But here—shins smocked with heat rash,the supersaturated air. We no longer believe in energies pure enough not to carry heat,nor in connections—the thought of someone somewhere warming the air we breathethat one degree more . . . . In a packed pub during the World Cup final,a bony redhead woman gripped my arm too hard. I could see how a bloke might fancy you.Like a child’s perfect outline in fast-melting snow, her wet handprint on my skin, disappearing.The crowd boiling over, a steam jet: Brrra-zil! And Paris—a heroin addictwho put her hypodermic to my throat: Je suis malade.J’ai besoin de medicaments. Grabbing her wrist, I sawher forearm’s tight net sleeve of drying blood. I don’t like to be touched.I stand in this mammoth parking lot, car doors open, letting the air conditionerrun for a while before getting in. The heat presses down equallyeverywhere. It wants to focus itself, to vaporize something instantaneously,efficiently—that shopping cart, maybe, or that half-crushed brown-glass bottle—but can’t quite. Asphalt softens in the sun. Nothing’s detachable.The silvery zigzag line stitching the tarmac to the sky around the edgesis no breeze, just a trick of heat. My splayed-out compact car half-sunkin the tar pit of its own shadow— strong-shouldered, strainingto lift its vestigial wings.