Maureen Daniels

There is the silence again,
the late morning without.

All the small crop planes
are refueling, breaking

for lunch. The backyard
strawberries are inedible.

Their neighboring mint
leaves already crushed.

The sky, the color
of a painless bruise

is empty for the hour.
Inside the grandfather

boils a second egg.
He will live

longer than all of us
even with his great

sorrow, that hideous
imposter of a universe.