Check the Weather Religiously

Check the Weather Religiously

Prayerfulness, reverence,
and a thrill sprung from minor anticipation.
What will the weather be tomorrow?
Consult the TV, an entire channel devoted
to simplifying what falls from the sky.
Luxuriate in voiceless animation.
The calendar is reduced to playing
cards, numbered squares inscribed with symbols.
Tomorrow, rain: two teardrops
staggered, overlapping. The day after
bears a cloud with petaled edges.
Temperature is shown on a graph, jagged
as a broken zipper. The future
is at stake, but with little risk.
What can I expect of air,
of atmosphere, of sky? The background of blue
on TV is pleasantly vacant,
bare of ambiguity: here
is what you can expect tomorrow
when you stand, face upturned to the heavens.