The Phatic

Here we are, back on Zoom; 

two thumbnail windows of breath and worry.

"How’s the weather?” he asks,

and the sky files a quarterly report: temperature, wind pressure, UV;

as if survival required a spreadsheet of air.

Small talk makes me want to scream. 

I won’t.

I will smile like a hostage who learned to juggle, 

but hear me:

Our mouths didn’t evolve to inventory clouds.

They were built for vows and plots, 

for naming what hurts and what might heal,

for the dangerous transfer of truth.

Spare me the barometer. 

Ask me why I couldn’t sleep. 

Tell me where you hide your courage. 

Confess the thing you nearly did. 

Show me the idea that keeps pacing your ribcage. 

Let’s risk a sentence that could change a day.

I know the forecast.

 It is always mixed. 

Scattered joy. Intermittent grief. 

A high chance of absurdity, clearing late. 

That’s weather enough.

So here’s my policy: we leave the phatic at the door.

 I will nod once to the sky; courtesy paid; then spend breath on what we came for: 

the work, the wonder, the honest cut.

Report this, if you must:

conditions remain existential, 

visibility: human,

and from now on, cut to what matters.

F.S.F