A death, as an adult, is strange. I was so busy, and now I'm not busy at all. I'm not at work. I'm supposed to be packing, but not doing that either. I'm walking around the rooms of my house, looking out the windows at the mountains, the violent clouds, beginning disconnected tasks and then abandoning them. I'd feel self-loathing for this dawdling, except that it doesn't really matter when I leave or arrive. The dead aren't in a hurry, and I'm on dead time, now.

Part of me is dreading the next phases of occupation. The kind of waiting room that death makes of families. Different houses to hover in, unbusy, and say things to other people who also suddenly have too much time on their hands.  We'll say the things that people say to each other. We'll say "at least it was quick" but it wasn't quick, and we can all see that, so we will lie to each other the way people do.

I have to write something. They said "you're the writer, write something, a poem or something." How can I write something if I can't pack a suitcase?

Dog is confused. We find a ball under the cabinet; he goes to pieces over it. We go for a run in the rain. I don't mean for it to be a run, I don't know who starts it, it just happens, and suddenly we are flying over the wet pavement. When I get home, we are both soaked. I try and fail to make breakfast. Clean up the kitchen. Outside, the devil is beating his wife.  Half the sky is psychotic storm clouds and the other is just this perfect blue, west over the big shoulder North mountain makes in my window. The forsythia are blooming and the light hitting them against the gray makes the yellow blossoms look explosive, mesmerizing, and if I have to eat one more fucking bite of this goddamn omelette I'm going to throw up.