What's a word that means waiting

when there is no for?

Maybe it's because a friend died last week

in his sleep. Or because

I've been moping about.

But when my husband says of a squirrel who, fat from eating the avocados

off the tree in our yard, rests, eyes closed, on the fence,

He knows he's living the life, I know

there's no intended admonishment of me in his words

and yet.

Out there, fog––not like a veil,

not disappearing

what will later come back.

Getting weird, Eliza said yesterday

when I asked how she's been doing,

I've been talking to myself.

Yes!

except it's not the mist and salt of loneliness I'm after.

Married for decades, yet occasionally, I––

as if in a suspension––

in a confusion––

unable to see anything

except what's right in front of me––

still sometimes get lost

in the attention of men.

Ones dressed in jeans and brown leather boots. Old ones–– the shoes, I mean,

but, lately, also the men.

I just learned

the coastal fog bank

is known in parts of England

as the Haar

and Fret¬¬.

Today was a hard day

at work––every 50 minutes

another 50 to get through.

For a while, I'd like to not think, I think,

about my own or anyone's sadness.

Go the beach, drive across the bridge...

imagining a tollbooth

and beyond it, a slip of sky.