telling the temperature by crickets

they say you can tell the temperature
by cricket, counting how many chirps in
fourteen seconds and adding forty.
the crickets in our neighborhood must be stoned
like most everyone around here, the scent
of marijuana floats through my window.
they chirp sluggishly and notify me that I
should be wearing a sweatshirt when I'm
comfortable in short sleeves.
i'll set the metronome to the correct pulse
and broadcast it to the cricket masses
every night until snow hushes them
for the long winter ahead.