Small Talk

Small Talk

I talked about the weather today—
that center of the longest conversation on earth,
started long before Noah’s Ark,
and continued until just this morning,
all around introductions and
coffee machines and nervous meetings
and my wife wondering what to wear
on a Wednesday.

This force we battle, thinking
we have it licked, has covered us
with impermanence since
the day the single cells
topped the food chain.

And we may think we’ve won,
but we wear a worthy respect,
and convey a complicit conviction,
as we compose our careless colloquies.