Mark, who has a tall ladder, helps us every now
and then with little house repairs. Tonight,
he came to attach solar-powered motion sensor
lights on one side of the house. The ones I got
are small but give off beams in three settings—
bright and on all night after dusk, dim but brightening,
or suddenly bright at detected motion. The idea
of light is that it foregrounds what's cloaked in shadow
and therefore precarious—a short flight of crooked
steps, the space underneath where someone
of dubious intention might crouch. A stray cat
prowls this part of the neighborhood and winds up
on the lowest corner of the roof. A masked
raccoon watches intently in the fork of a tree.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
