Parking Lots #2

We’d had another argument and so I went for a walk after dinner. It was dark, but darkness is only relative in the city. There is light everywhere. The atmosphere around the arc lamps sends diffused halos rippling out to the blurry edges. I walked along the shore of Lake Michigan and then through the bird sanctuary where everything was silent; from across the harbor came the muffled strum of auto traffic on the Drive. Popping out of the Magic Hedge and about to cross the parking lot, I spied a coyote silhouetted, the bristled hairs on his back standing up. He turned to look at me, the only two figures on an asphalt landscape. After a minute he galloped off and I continued circumnavigating the promenade before turning toward home.