Photography © Edward S. Gault

 

In the Overnight

It is in the overnight when the Nocturnals travel about.
Dull yellow street light lingers above the alley, as moths
dart about it. Fog shrouds the ground below in a misty
coat of soupy broth. Dumpsters full of last evenings
meals, from restaurants backing up to the alley, are full
of rodents, flies, and humans, who look for something
to eat from the discarded treasures. It is not a place an
animal willfully comes, but simply out of necessity.

It is in the overnight they idle in parked cars, hang in
darkened doorways, wait for the drunks. As the bars
close, some wobble down the sidewalk, others go
home with strangers, some sit in cars. Opportunists
strike. They pull from cars, knock down on sidewalks,
grab and run.

It is in the overnight the red fox runs the park, chases a
rabbit into its burrow, claws its way in, drags the rabbit
out for a meal. Owl glides high above a roost of crows
in poplar tree, spots the weakest on the edge, swoops in,
talons penetrate, flies off. Opossum leaves it lonely home
scurries about, until it locates a mouse, makes haste
consumes, looks for another.

It is in the overnight: darkness is thick.

 

g emil reutter is a writer of poems and stories.

Edward S. Gault is a poet and fine arts photographer living in Brighton, Massachusetts. His work has appeared in Oddball Magazine, Spectrum, Wilderness House Literary Review, Interlude, Currents, and Encore.