The morning air smells like rain in the distance. There’s a word for this first rain smell, petrichor. It smells like dust and earth and of things being stirred up. It smells like the anticipation of arrivals. It’s gray and rain is on the way. I can smell it in the air.

Ba-gack, one two three ba-gack, one two three four ba-gack. A backyard hen chatters and squawks. It’s warmer this morning – still cool. Every so often a truck rumbles by or my stomach gurgles. The coffee, no longer hot, leaves a pasty coating on my tongue. Time passes, the morning has a tempo.

This two-fifths moon is a valentine waning crescent. Slightly diminished and slowly vanishing, she reminds me that nothing is ever fully seen. Even in her hiding, she remains present. In her soft moon voice, which sounds a little like an ocean tide, she says, “but look at how the sky grows light.”

The bottom of the small glass tumbler I use for wine shines red and filmy and translucent under the tableside lamplight. Except for a blood-moon half-ring, the glass is empty and it’s getting late. Song lyrics play in my head with the urgency of fire or the rapid read absence of punctuation.

Walking through the grocery store, I often slow down and smile in the coffee aisle. The scents remind me that shopping can be pleasurable, or at least mildly so. The bakery and flower sections too. And who hasn’t stood in slack-jawed wonder in front of a small, bright pyramid stack of oranges?

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?