Static fizzles gray all around me.

The baby knows how to say “ssh.”

I wish I could make it quiet.

Days pass when it’s all I can hear.


I see a leaf on the ground and it

strikes me that he would have

examined it.

Pulled it apart. Turned it over to

see what’s living underneath.


Times like this there is a spark

that crackles through the buzzing

drone of the nowadays, the after times.

The days that aren’t alive

like they were when he was.


I absorb the projects that come home

in backpacks full of uneaten

peanut butters. They demand

thankfulness. Gratitude.

(Let’s remember what was told to us

that didn’t actually happen.) And

let’s be thankful.


Sidewalk appears underfoot like it was

just drawn there and then, for

me alone. I don’t know where I’m stepping.

There has always been a template.

At least a loose sketch.


Gathering those who want to be alone

and apart. We’re directed to celebrate.

Gift lists have holes now. We can’t know

how to fill them and so we won’t.


This fuzz I hear muffles nearly all else.

Who knew the sound of static was

deafening.


Photo by Andre Moura from Pexels