The New Normal

The New Normal

is neither. April spruces burdened with wet snow
like clotheslines full of white laundry, fires built
inside, late day all wrong for the temperature—
seven o'clock sun ice-dancing in still-bare trees.

Or that mindlessly hot swath of February, blinking
stunned at its raggedy-ass self: a dead-twig-brown
world staggered by humid sun that failed before
I could even grill chicken for supper. Somebody

always intones a date from The Weather Records:
in nineteen-forty something, an airport thermometer,
the temperature at Central Park, pages of faded,
spidery notes from the Civil War—not reassuring.

I think of the backpack-bent kids long-legging their
way through this and wonder what they'll remember:
our boggle of abundance, the many varieties of fish
and vegetables, the granite-countered kitchens of

absent parents. And consider my memories: actual
writing paper in the desks in the women's washroom
at Grand Central Station, the smooth, uncrowded
beaches on Long Island, summer nights turning

cool enough to pull up a blanket, but cricket-jingled.
The murmur and quiet laughter of adults downstairs,
the unspoken promise of plenty hidden in the air like
TV signals from the big city, there for anyone to take.