{"id":2329,"date":"2026-08-03T13:06:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T13:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=2329"},"modified":"2026-08-10T11:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T11:30:09","slug":"melt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=2329","title":{"rendered":"Melt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
It's the kind of humid day where 
man-made atheisureware sticks to your pores
cloaking you in an unwelcome, 
soaking warmth.
As if you're a slower cooker crock
in a thermal sleeve
belted to the passenger seat,
leaking beads of umami sweat 
en route to a cross-town potluck.
The type of morning where 
your carefully selected Lululemon fabric 
suffocates you on a cellular level
as you labor to get in a pre-work walk.
The sort of seven o'clock where 
the wild calls from the forest canopy
could be avian or simian, 
you're not quite sure.

The dawn melts into morning
as your flesh becomes steamed dumplings
glistening and plump as you close your circuit.

Soon (too soon) it's time 
to shed Lycra for linen and pearls,
don a button-downed worker disguise.
But riding shotgun with you, 
as you descend into the garage structure,
is the feral grip of summer fever, 
for you are molten at your core.



<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cMelt,\u201d a duality of nature and humanity on a hot humid morning, written Monday, August 03, 2026 poem 215 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo: “Bipedal,”  by Diana Ludwick \u00a9 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,811,262,200,1572,2,551],"tags":[2252,2184,2248,2244,2243,2245,1075,1838,1338,9,1276,1004,2250,2249,2246,2247,134,2251],"class_list":["post-2329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-poetry-challenge","category-current-events","category-dry-humor","category-humor","category-of-place","category-poems","category-unserious","tag-athleisure","tag-august","tag-avian","tag-cellular-level","tag-feral","tag-forest-canopy","tag-garage","tag-high-summer","tag-humidity","tag-humor","tag-lycra","tag-melt","tag-passenger-seat","tag-potluck","tag-riding-shotgun","tag-simian","tag-summer","tag-thermal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2329"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2345,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329\/revisions\/2345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}