From the Book of Missing Hours

In the before-dawn stillness of the crickets, thin sickle-moon, the thistles in the yard inseparable from their shadows, from under the front porch comes an urgent metronome — Ow? Ow? Ow? Ow? Ow? — pure supplication addressed to no one in particular, poor feral cat in heat counting the ways in which this endless moment might be illuminated.