Night rolls on beneath the quicksilver lantern of the first quarter moon. Crab spiders spin new webs between house and mock orange, guided in their work by unfathomable instinct, natures container for the blueprint of their snares and instructions to hunters of all kinds. Doves roost in the olive bushes along the driveway. Widget stirs on the river rock boundary below my window, dreaming, perhaps, of a piglet along the fence line or a pheasant slow to flight. In the garden a Bufo toad hops toward the dog's water dish, it's stolid progression sounding like footsteps of a larger animal. Dew falls and condenses on the metal roof and drips into the gutter and the grass grows longer and greener beneath each downspout. In the garage the goldfish in their tank hover low and wait, measuring the passing time by the strength of the moonlight that floods through the window behind their cubic foot of pond on the workbench.
On her bed below the fish Jesse favors her left hip in her sleep and runs through her dreams without a care. In front of me moths batter themselves senseless trying to fly into the light while at the edges of the window geckos wait patiently for them to come within striking distance.
High above, the multitude of stars contends in vain with the waxing moon for dominance of the endless night.
Lovely language, though it does read as though Jesse was the name of a fish.
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