I did not bring flowers
when I came to your empty home,
a house filled, a cacophony, a tray of hot food
to accompany us on the couch
as we marveled at your mother's trip to Italy,
the ice-cream cones in London,
a tarnished ring.

Driving away, she and the fog hung
low, in the yellow 9 o' clock sky--
over streetlights
shopping malls
and the rest of us.