White bedsheets flapping in the heavy breeze. Orange shrapnel from withered branches impotently scrape the stiffening linens.

I never saw an owl in my backyard, nor a black cat elbowed and shrieking on my fence.

But I can smell the wet detritus of autumn by the cellar windows and drip, drip, dripping from the gutter.

The doorbell. A banging on the screen door. Shaving cream in the middle of the street. These things, too.