Doug Stone On My Evening Walk Moth flutters around my porch light, celebrating after straightening up the geometry of evening so it matches the night sky and the stars make sense. A cat slithers though the gutter, fluid as water, eyes full of things I can’t see. Like a sudden downpour, the cat spills over the curb, soaks into the dark and is gone. The ground groans as if it has eaten too much and needs to loosen its belt. Bats explode through the dark like buck shot scaring the glow out of the streetlights. A mound of dirt snores beside the neatly gouged grave that is too afraid of the dark to sleep. Tomorrow, a yellow bulldozer will wake the dirt and bury the grave’s anxiety. I’ve reached the zenith of my walk. I will follow the celestial breadcrumbs the moth’s left back to my house where this began and where it will end.
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