Last night at the beach in through the looking glass.

Just me, alone on the backyard porch swing
Smoking a cigar (an infrequent but glorious vice)
Drinking a glass of whiskey (a too tall glass, courtesy of my husband)
Beyond the edges of my book, the sky slowly rolling over from blue to pink and then purple, the flicker of heat lightning in some distant clouds
And the hoo hoo hoo of that exotic bird from my childhood (really just a dove, I recently discovered)

There must have been a tree just outside the window, a tree from which that singular dove would call to me every late, slow rising morning, sunlight washing the whole room yellow. And then at night, the static electricity from our feet shuffling along the carpet, echoing the brilliant blazes of heat lightning across the sky. El Paso, mid-1990s, summers with my grandparents. Safe. Content.

Just like now.