Cataracts realign reality in evening’s
fading light. A pleasant obscurity
overtakes familiar sights as twilight 
dims daytime’s harsh edges.

Catula, the yellow barn cat
slithers through gray shadows, 
becomes a petite, fire-breathing
dragon with a tail that twitches
at the slightest sound.

A rusted bicycle with a banana 
seat askew precariously leans
against the shed awaiting a lad
who has matured, now preferring
muscle cars, and girls with loose morals. 

Good sense knows it's just random 
junk, but near darkness and blurred
vision allow it to appear as a smoking-
hot Harley ridden by a curly-haired-Brylcreemed-
bad boy with a cigarette arrogantly
stuck to his lower lip.

I remember when home-by-dark meant 
an end to summer’s daytime magic, supper 
was served with sliced tomatoes, squash, okra
corn, peas, and all the garden’s glory followed
by watermelon, nectarines or sticky, sweet popsicles.

Plump with youthful possibility, we ran barefoot, 
legs welted red and raw with chigger bites, until 
our sides became stitched, our breath in labored
gasps, we were stinky, sweaty, but oblivious 
to heat or humidity. We cavorted like spring colts.

Home-by-dark meant balancing on a razor-thin
tightrope of time, gambling on our fleet feet to 
outrun the fading light. We believed in our own
invincibility, and that we’d slam the screen
door before darkness fell, and night terrors
swallowed us into that cavernous belly of the whale.