the morning is blanketed with gray,
everything hazy with an eerie glow.
i sit, cold concrete hard beneath me,
inhaling smoke with languor, a sigh.
across the street, through the dim fog,
i can hear a toddler's cry,
a man's voice, a loud crash!
lights flip on and off.

she walks out the front door suddenly,
mostly obscured by the car between us,
looking inside and saying something i
can't quite hear through the distance.
with a quick twist of the neck, she
adjusts her hair; the moment feels so
private, i feel like an impostor, a spy.

from the depths of the shrouded house,
her husband emerges like a prince,
cradling their small son like a fragile
infant, an egg already begun to hatch.
their heads are adorned with a mop of
nearly identical hair--the young boy's
is bright with the innocence and
curiosity of youth, as vibrant as his
general demeanor as a toddler; the father's
is amber with both the joys and hardships
of age, like the wizened golden crown of our maple
tree at the conclusion of a long, hot summer.

she gets into her car, darker than the sky but
in a similarly neutral hue, and says a tender
goodbye to both of them before departing.
as the car backs out of the driveway, the
father and son, two of a kind, separated
only by the years between them,
wave and shout "goodbye!" as she leaves for the day.