Waiting

She still wears his watch—
face shattered, clasp refusing to close
while she cleans house and carefully
arranges eight years of photographs.

Vases of flowers line the shelves,
grief running wild in her living room,
as she smooths her hair with chewed
finger nails, tugging on the falling
waist band of her jeans.
Silence—heavy on our tongues
is lugged from room to empty room
as she stares out the balcony window,
rubs her foot across their dog
never breaking her line of vision
into early winter skies, the wispy clouds
stalled over head and a row of bending
palms tipping their limbs toward the ground.