It’s five fifteen in the morning and I find my peace in a plastic lawn chair. The kind you buy four for twenty at the Dollar General. Flecks of red spray paint cling to my skin.
The tortoiseshell cat is satisfied to sleep in the cradle of my legs, crossed ankle to knee like a man. She’s making biscuits. needle point pricks of country cat claws kneading my pale, doughy flesh.
The stray shepherd, one eye sky blue and the other mud brown, is never satisfied. But he missed me when I ventured off the Ridge and into town. So he sits as patient as he can manage and I scratch his speckled muzzle while the knock of his tail echoes over loose, front porch floor boards.
We sit in silence.
Except for the thump and the purr.
Except for the cardinal. Screaming - “Wet dew! Wet dew!” one last time before the light breaks the whole holler.
