He bought the big blue and white bowl
that he makes his mother’s bread recipe in
the week after his wife of 20-plus years
left him for the trite trope of another man.
He remembers how he stood in Bed, Bath & Beyond
pondering how one outfits a new life
out of such stuff as towels and kitchen tools
even as he puzzled over what a thread count is.
But the bowl was the one sure thing
he needed to connect with the comfort
of his dearly departed mother who always baked
Cornel bread--nutritious and satisfyingly good.
It called to him, mirroring his own emptiness.
Now, all these years and another wife later,
he looked around at the home he’d made
as he came in from walking the dog
and watched as she washed that same bowl
not knowing that she was thinking
of him standing perplexed in the store,
as fragile as a panoply of pottery,
amazed that the bowl was still intact
through all their moves without one chip,
just a few scratches where metal spoons stirred
flour and yeast concoctions into new creations
that regularly rose from out of the empty midst.