Under the window at the moment of sleep the filament of the weedwhacker strums hard but damped the first four tines from the kleenex side of a giant comb harmonica. A short length of stick, loosely gripped as in Drums 101, twirls in your palm along the black matte jailhouse bars of the fence, a smothered bell whose resonant itch burrows into your wrist. The recycling box bounces onto the lawn
from the edge of the frame a split second before the truck appears, the new one, which offsets its comparitive slightness and drab yellow detailing with the big chrome grin of its retro grill, the esprit of its contractors, whose practiced nonchalance can't quite disguise their fervor for breaking glass, being outdoors. Perhaps 2/3 of an inch below the surface of the rainbarrel the porchfish sunbathes lengthwise across a lozenge of light, orange to a point of mild distortion, seeming to wake with a start at those infrequent points when its dorsal fin breaks the surface tension, or when the light is interrupted.