night so thick wade the moonlight. sweat stuck on the second step of the stoop. i do not want to go up, into the apartment with tea in its pantry, a clean litter box nor down to the streets. 4 am’s dry wind. only the garbage men. their trucks wheeze, weave between street sweepers, industrial green dumpsters perched on the edge of the sidewalk. sidewalk, a glut of smashed jacaranda blooms, rotted purple to white to brown. how the first flush of dawn appears as a white crust circling the sky, thinning out into the same weak grey light in which i learned to be alone.