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After Reading about Decreasing Snowmelt in the Rocky Mountains

               From the lecture hall projector beams 
 a phantom glacier, filling the screen with a map of Colorado.
      The colorful shading illustrates the decline in annual 		
      snowfall. A red cloud overwhelms this town where streams	
           diminish, where a teenager skims a manual, 
                      cleaning her semiauto					
               for weekend mornings hunting elk
by ponderosa pines each year less green, half of them tinder. 		
      Down Main Street denim pockets jingle coins and keys
      to pickups still uncaked by rock salt. Skiers sulk. 			
           An empty chairlift sways in a dry breeze.			
                      The sun shines all winter.
                
               Recycled paper notebooks weigh
the backpack zipped for the walk to biology where jellyfish
      on television swarm the vacant sea as lamps
      the lighting aisle at Lowe’s, where solar panels pay
           for themselves in ten years, blurring a glimpse
                      too real, too nightmarish
                     
               for direct examination—the day 
when power fails—though the neon vacancy at the motel 
      shines on, and preppers hoard their nails and batteries.		
      Monarch migrations dwindle, AM stations decay.
           Thermometers fluctuate near thirty degrees.
                      A chickadee chimes like a bell.