Place Entry 4

5:45 pm

the corner of my street (metro Detroit)

The absence of critters made sense last week and the week before and the week before and the week before when the weather was below freezing, below livable.

But today it is beautiful: 52 degrees, pink-skyed and fresh. Still, not an animal stirs.

A car whizzes by, threatening me with spray from its tires. The potholes have worsened, and I suspect the animals know to avoid bustling intersections. They move covertly, take side streets, like drunks at closing time. I breathe deeply. The air is wet and the sidewalk sopping with mud. The snow has melted, save foot high piles where the plows were, stubborn reminders of a season that hasn't finished.

But I have finished. I have finished with metro Detroit-- for now, at least. Tomorrow I will be on I-75, winding through the Smokies to the end of the Appalachian trail 'til I reach the ATL. Back to Georgia. Back to the heat, the peaches and the southern slang. A new city to claim. A new self to invent.

Walking down the road to my home- my mother's home, I ought to say- I look up at the barren trees. Melting snow and humidity has rendered them inky black. They are stark against the coral sky. There is no wind, and I can feel them breathe with me. They are expectant, sensing spring in the unseasonable heat. They don't care I am abandoning them.

The ground is mostly mud with sparse tufts of green grass. I imagine there are earthworms wriggling just beneath the surface. They are nearly ready to see the sun.