Morning brightness belies the cold. A black cat pauses in the street, and I tighten my grip on the leash. The dog is too busy sniffing pee, grass, and dirt to notice. The cat looks my way – trots on. I miss being able to psspssps my way up to purrs and headbutts.

The wind. Fifteen, twenty, thirty miles an hour. Still under the speed limit, it hits the neighborhood trash cans like a car. I heard it in the dark. I felt it when I turned the corner where the new curb had been poured and the dog sniffs the tall grass. The wind.

The small flashlight in my overcoat pocket drumbeat bangs against the phone in my pants. Loose elastic socks slide towards my heels. I begin to think my feet have grown or flattened or widened a few sizes. Above, an unbroken ceiling of gray. How do I know which cloud is number nine?

Paintbrushes lean to one side of a mug like rockets ready to launch. Three dog toy squeakers huddle together. They might be plotting a heist. A mess of papers, lists, receipts, and mail tablecloth the other end of the dining room table.  The poinsettia stripped of most of its leaves still lives.

Thin clouds gauze a near-full moon. A halo implies more than I want it to imply – hanging there, looking straight ahead. Planes have made an etch-a-sketch of the sky. Early and on the move. Whether we want to or not, we leave a trail. We cast a glow. All of it disappears.

The hoodie hangs out like the shell of a paper boy. All sneakers and kicks and a lookin’ downward kinda coy. It’s makin’ its collection on the back of a dining chair. Or maybe it’s beggin’ to get out and go somewhere. The car’s in the drive, the hoodie’s stuck in park.

My neighbor walks his roof. He bends and picks debris – tosses it to the ground. Up and over the apex he disappears. He returns with white strands of tangled lights. He dangles his legs over the edge. His unsure foot feels for the top rung of a ladder that doesn’t quite reach.  

The planet is 4.54 billion years old. 4.54 billion years of history have been building to this. This morning, this day, this sun-kissed frosty blade of grass, and this bead of water rolling down the drain of the kitchen sink. An entrance billions of years waiting behind a curtain, stage left. Hello.