Stephen Dunn Quieter After grandmother's funeral, I rode home in a black limo built to hide faces like mine, and to schlep the famous to their galas or high rollers to their ruin. Next day, in my little Toyota, I headed north to price the cost of forgetfulness at Saratoga, and give myself permission to scream. The nags I bet on that afternoon permitted only mutterings, though in the last race twenty-to-one Big Cat came from behind, majestically lengthening its stride. "Oh no," I exclaimed, as it passed my horse by. All day long early speed had given way to what came late and hard. Wisdom would have had me a Big Cat man, but if I were wise I'd have been elsewhere. I left, wearing my gambler's resigned-to- failure smile, and beat traffic to the Northway, the car reverberating with mindlessness of my choice, music at full blast. But at Half Moon in search of cheap gas and something cold, I pulled in to a Stop 'N Shop, and found myself just sitting behind the wheel, a sudden quiet in the air, a quiet until then I hadn't known I'd been staving off. It was as if a wind after long carelessness had died down, the only evidence of its existence what it had swept away. No, it was quieter than that, the hush of all I'd left unsaid no more than an undertone. Grandmother, I run to grieve. I remember everything I've lost.