Dear Wigleaf,

3:37 a.m. & the bedroom is dark, & my wife is asleep next to me. Our son is asleep across the hall. Too early in the year for cricket-song but I'm ready. Every fall I listen for the last one—its last little chirp—& a crashing wave of quiet.

Here in earliest spring I hear owls. Coyotes the other night. A bunch of them yipping after a train rolled by & blew its whistle.

We live on a curve in the road. Even at this hour somebody's always driving past, headlights spraying through the slats of the blinds & crawling the wall. If I could tell you plain how meaningful headlights on the wall feel to me, I could probably give up writing.

Wouldn't that be nice? To be understood & able to give up.

To let shit be.

But my mind yips & chirps & hoots—at this hour especially. Where are you going, 3 a.m. driver rounding the curve & splashing my wall with light? I'm imagining a life for you, & probably getting it all wrong. If by chance we cross paths in a crowd someday years from now, we'll never know it.

What I mean is: I couldn't possibly love you more.

Yours truly,
Steve




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