A candle flickers in the dimming last light of a summer night and the sweet smell of citronella and lemongrass float on the air as I sit on the back deck, smoking cigarettes with my mom.  Inside, in a puddle of lamplight, a little girl in bare feet and a floral nightgown is perched at the kitchen table, her long dark hair still wet from the bath, the slightest citrus scent still lingering from the detangling spray.  She is eating a bowl of chocolate ice cream in big heaping spoonfuls, so big in fact that they cannot pass her lips without leaving brown skid marks at the corners of her mouth.   A little brown dog, just a baby of a dog, is asleep in my lap, her head heavy and hanging a bit off the edge of my leg as I stroke the smooth space of her neck, down her chest, to the plump little belly and its bare spot of warm skin.

These nights, I know there is still much to be done – there are puppies and girls to feed and raise and teach and train.  But I will get to that tomorrow, and for many a tomorrow.  But for these blessed moments at the end of a summer evening, when the dishes from dinner are already being wizzed clean and the bathroom floor has already been dried, and Ariel and her friends are drip-drying on the edge of a clean tub.  These moments before goodnights and sleeptights, are perfectly in between, as the candle light dances and flickers in the dark.

~DRH for The Poplar Grove Muse