Fog became the metaphor for all my grief,
following me to the veterinary clinic
where it pressed against the parking lot, then
back home away from the euthanized cat,
and for days later through Kansas
and into icy Missouri. I couldn’t stop
thinking it was torturing me
when I found it delaying our flight
to Chicago, rerouting us to San Francisco
to Maui where I saw it flopped
over Pu’u Kukui
when the sun rose. There was no place
I could go, and no where it would not
follow. I kept moving, but almost
a month later, it wreaked
havoc in Wellington, so the ferries were full
as they churned, visibility or no, through
the channels. Like earthquake, mudslide,
or tsunami waves, no one was prepared,
almost no one expected it. On the shore
of Lake Taupo, I heard the story
of the woman, safe on higher ground,
called down after the first wave
to check, who died in the second wave,
her head bashed. Today my Granny
won’t eat or can’t sleep in the general
hospital, her medicines and pain
conspiring against her. This morning
under Oahu’s blue sky, I floated
in the salty water, water a Japanese
man will lecture on tonight,
how it feels more empathy than
we can, how it reflects the universe
in our emotion, how it crystallizes
like snowflakes, feeling our pain
dense and thick as fog.