when some pundit named
that mix of smoke and fog that hovers LA
smog. Decades later, a Texas weatherman
ripped a page from that book, named
the mix of homegrown pollution and smoke
from Mexico’s burning farmlands: s’maze.
Grandpappy’s blue northers? They’re now
Arctic Express. Yukon Express. Yankee Clipper.

Hurricanes, once women, took men’s names.
And last year, Weather Channel
(Gotta bless Weather Channel)
named snowstorms—with heroes names.
When someone says Dion is coming
I don’t open cabinets and drip faucets,
I set another place at the table.

Never heard of a derecho till I was in one.
Temperature inversion. Stratocumulus.
Lake effect snow. We differentiate between
frozen rain and sleet, hear of frozen drizzle
and frozen fog, which, so far, no one labeled
frizzle or frog, though they did christen
thunder snow and, recently, cobblestone ice.
I’m awaiting dustnadoes and sneet.