………….But that was long, long ago. Back when lanterns were a real thing people used, to check the foal’s position inside the birth canal, or for a small boy to find his way home from shore, he must have fallen asleep, I can’t see anyone, where did everyone go? He isn’t lost, just a little afraid, but he’s learned how to trick himself into feeling less afraid: he makes a list in his head of all he knows for sure. That when the nights bloom with cricket song, ………….not yet, not now isn’t what they’re singing, they’re not even singing, it just sounds like that. How what never happened, if it’s remembered hard enough, can seem almost true. Nighthawks are called nighthawks for no fancier reason than because nocturnal. It was long ago. Now, as then, there were choices. If not every choice is one that we get to make, some we do. You can treat the past like a piece of fine glass to see yourself reflected in; or to see through.