Lily likes the stringy things on my feet and nibbles and tugs to undo my laces.

Today: A muddy path stamped with dog prints and bordered by pumpkin vines leads the way. Autumn reminds me of corduroy. Everything has a texture. Part of this roughness is an illusion of splotchy colors and clouds. The fall is not smooth like a key struck on the piano, the dying note a falling feather.

Autumn is a scratchy surface where plants shrivel back into the ground and darkness casts its shadows earlier at daylight's edge.

Bright orange gourds and tractors pulling bales of hay and children will distract us while morning frost glues itself to the grass.

Jerry is not home this week and the darkness hides things that frighten me.

There is nothing in the darkness that is not there in the light, he tells me.

Oh, I disagree. The moonlight plucks pockets of moisture off of random surfaces to move them across the night, rippling, what was that?

I had to run back down to the car tonight, I know.