The Optimist Continues to Consider the Weather
The word report has many definitions,
most of them formal, none of them conducive to the pajama pants
she’s wearing as she fills out yet another computer-generated questionnaire
for work while considering how lucky she is to be comfortable today;
the window open slightly exchanging old winter air for spring air,
a savory fifty-five degrees.
She warms her third cup of coffee in the microwave
while flipping through selections of tea: mint mandarin, vanilla red chai,
lotus flower Japanese green, lavender chamomile honey.
At 4 PM she will switch to wine.
The days are marked by frivolous choices.
She listens to the same podcasts between 6 and 8 PM, fluffs the same pillows,
writes the same lists that she may or may not need; anything
to feel a clock ticking, the weather app still telling her when not to go outside
without a hooded sweatshirt.
She chooses one of the nine in her closet like someone
gone shopping, then walks the whole twelve blocks of the neighborhood
around her, like someone exploring somewhere she has never been.