After I Have Provisionally Voted

I dwell in practicality, 
ugly & unpraised. 

Where do you see yourself in five years? 
Checking the time, checking the temperature.
O soft coup of consistency!

Checking the chaos meter.
Scraping my plate, scrubbing my lines.
O hard coup of invisible metrics!

Checking on my neighbors—are they alive? Am I? 

The weatherman promised 
      the current system
would shift by Tuesday—
but he lied. 

I know—they know—we know—

and we cling to it, sweeping 
settled ash off the porch.