I check the weather
several times every day,

type the same URL
several times every day,

and click on the
Ten-Day Forecast several times

every day,
but nothing ever changes.

Fifty degrees and sunny,
all throughout January

and into February
and March after that.

There was a time
when I was a child

when snow fell from the sky
as though heaven’s railroad workers

were laboring day and night
to shovel it over their shoulders

and down through the clouds it would cascade,
its flakes as big and light as down feathers,

falling onto my tongue
and melting into a spot of singular cold.

But anymore,
the weather never changes.

The muted sunlight
simply cuts through the sky

in a flaccid, dull gesture
that mingles with car exhaust

and factory fumes
in a bizarre ritual

that burns my eyes
and singes my lungs.

Somewhere deep
between my navel and my sternum,

I understand that those old days
will never return,

and that those railroad workers,
their skins caked with dirt and moisture,

have long since slung their shovels
over their shoulders,

and wiped the sweat
from their foreheads,

and boarded that train

as it slowly, steadily,
mercilessly chugs

toward some destination
where I am not allowed to be.