Moth

From a craft prompt focused on describing places, this emerged:

The coyotes yip with voices so human, so near, I think they must be right under my window, drawing me to sneak past my parent’s bedroom and downstairs, hugging the left side because the creaks are on the right.

Bare feet navigate, still gritty from the day’s sandbox, rough from running the concrete driveway, brave from walking over the bed of pinecones where I am sure the coyotes gather. The grass is cool and wet and my toes slip against each other as I creep toward the great trees that seem ten times as large in moonlight as they do in daytime.

The coyotes are quiet. I, too, become still. Still as the dead moth I found yesterday, its feet hooked in the screen window so I couldn’t tell it wasn’t alive until I touched the powdered silver of its wing again and again and it didn’t move. Channel that silence and wait for ears to catch on a hint, a clue. There is only the swish of rhubarb leaves as some dark night-garden creature shifts its position in sleep. Warm heat of breath leaving my nose.