The Back Yard by Twilight

144 The Back Yard by Twilight Doug Van Gundy These are the hours I love the best: when the golden light of summer has climbed to the top of the abandoned building next door and all of the neighborhood cats have slinked from inside the woodpile beneath the back porch and the cicadas and katydids and gray tree frogs begin advertising in the cacophonous personals section of the wood lot and the dog can no longer find his ball in the tall grass at the edge of the darkening oaks and citronella wafts across the crabgrass and mingles with the lingering smell from the deep fryer at the diner at the bottom of the hill and the air grows heavy and moist and the sound of the traffic on the four-lane takes on a veiled quality and the blue-white of the sun is reflected in a satellite’s long aching arc across the sky and the windows open and the box fan comes on 145 Doug Van Gundy and the neighbor’s coonhound catches the scent of something toothy & wild and sounds his dutiful alarm and the faint bruised smell of a skunk comes on with the throw of the same switch that turns on all of the fireflies and the early windfall apples fall without any wind at all. ...