Dog Star

Walking widdershins through the side yard to the back, drought-colored grass burning under my feet. The grass is scattered with leaves the same color. Everything has turned brittle in the heat. 

I pass my husband who is sorting through boxes on the porch. We say nothing, but I can feel his preoccupied silence. I wonder if he notices my receding figure as I walk away. In my mind's eye we are like planets, moving through conjunctions, oppositions, trines.

On the other side of the fence, even as I stop to consider it, the woman who lives next door is dying. I push back against this stark knowledge and find myself remembering the lighted doorbell of her house, how it always flickered faintly, like a pulse. 

The dry grass stabs at me, rustles in the dusty breeze. 

I think, to live is to pass from one space to another. I think, I would make an inventory of my pockets, if I had any. 

Far away in the blue distance, Sirius stirs and yawns, awaiting its heliacal rise. 

Image source: Canis Major