Look at the moon, Jerry said.

We walked past parked cars and oil stains reflecting neon open signs while a thin moon slumped overhead. Its color through the day's heat and fading dusk was a sick yellow hue in a sooty city sky. It hung low over a disorganized horizon of banks' and restaurants' silhouettes where shared alleys held whispers of trash brushing against close walls.

Across the street an hour earlier in the sun's low, long honey rays was a woman casting her threadbare shadow. The ground was parched. She had stooped to set down grocery bags, looked at nothing and waited for her bus.

I looked at Jerry, glanced at the moon, and thought of its many comparisons including a witch's fingernail, or the forlorn, misplaced claw that it was, and hoped that our ride home would somehow scrape away the dreary feelings cities leave on my skin like paste.

The dogs are home nestled on the cool tile floor, looking at nothing and waiting for dinner.