when i wake, it is 3am and the world outside is rumbling. there is a freeway near here, and a leaf on the pavement, and the two are dancing with the wind. it is too hot to sleep, like it was last night and the night before, too hot for anything but the mosquitoes and the wind. outside, it is cooler than in here and i contemplate moving the cushions from the couches, out there, to the backlit stage of our backyard. somehow, though, i will be too visible, and remember the man who yesterday, from his balcony saw me without my shirt on. i remember nights like this from my childhood, the rustle of the dead wind and the way it brought no comfort, and from lake street, in that vortex of a house that wanted neither light nor breeze. here, though, my life is different, and more of my own then, and the wind is like a beacon in the night. i wonder how to fit more of it through my windows, if i could open the curtains more without betraying my dignity. i wonder how it takes a shape in the spaces we provide for it, how we like to think that we have control. i wonder how it is that we live in these places we have made for ourselves and how we cannot stand them, cannot stand the heat.