Before stepping out, examine the sky.

Is it dark and heavy, swimming with fish and portents?

Beware. Better to reschedule your day’s appointments.

Is it implausibly blue with no hint of an afternoon shower?

Again beware. Think twice. What you see is not what you get.

Is it unspectacular? Cauliflower clouds with a silver lining?

Beware most of all. The black magician’s dirty trick.

Danger awaits on every street corner. A falling pipe.

A speeding truck. A madman with an automatic rifle.

The black cat crossing your path is a messenger of death

Ditto with the old man dragging a bagful of plastic bottles.

Or the tricycle with the busted muffler spewing black smoke.

You are a sleepwalker innocently shuffling into slaughter.

The bleeding earth is your best evidence:

Denuded forests, disemboweled mountains, poisoned

Waters, clogged seas, islands of trash, smog and polluted air.

If a random stray bullet does not kill you,

The very air you breathe will. The world is a time bomb.

Best to stay put. Call in sick. Say migraine or LBM.