Change of Pace


A husband away makes the house 
new space in which I move differently.        
For breakfast, pumpkin pie and tea.    
The dog and I collect the morning Sun
at the edge of the driveway.    I clip 
the week's coupons to use at Safeway,
compose a page of needs in no order, ​                        
set the laundry to WASH. Later: a letter 
to Janet whose father died suddenly; 
the last blue stitches to knit in a size         
one sweater, an overdue visit to Rae
next door who’s eighty and sure the     
astronauts are using her house 
as a place to wait in before their next 
flight. She refuses to open the door; 
I might wake them. At home, the dog        
wheezes, stinks up the room with his           
gasses. I pick up the collected works
of Larkin who says oblivion lurks  
under all. We should be careful, 
and kind he says, while there is time.