This Could Kill You Either Way

Here’s a story for you,

From 1938,

A “Talk of the Town” piece,

Twelfth of that November,

Part of The New Yorker’s

Coverage of the Great

Long Island Hurricane

That struck that September.

If the story’s to be

Believed, a man waiting

On a barometer

That he had mail-ordered

Eagerly opened it

When the package arrived,

Coincidentally

The same day as the great

And unexpected storm.

Under sunny blue skies,

The new barometer

Gave a reading so low

It meant a hurricane

Of awesome dimensions

In the vicinity.

The man was so put out

At getting a broken

Barometer, he wrote

A disgusted letter

To the maker and marched

Down to his post office

To post it. By the time

He returned home, the storm

Had arrived and taken

Away barometer

And home along with it.

Was this unfortunate,

Or was it fortunate,

The barometer lost

As Cassandra, the man

Saved by his disgruntled

Refusal to believe

What his prophet told him?

Better lucky than smart,

But he wasn’t stupid.

He knew enough to parse

What that measurement meant,

Not enough to accept

The instrument correct.

How could he? Who warned him?

Stories, both true and false,

Love ironies like this,

Love to collapse in twists,

Yet still you trust these tales

More, for how right they feel,

But not bare measurements.