They don’t make nights like they used to. The stars don’t put as much into it anymore. The highway sounds a little further, and it just goes to all the designated places, infinitely practical. I hear only cats in the street, not the roar of animals in the wilderness, hungry as bones. There was once a risk to the night. The dark brought strange visitors. You barred the door from them or you let them in. And they rattled the pots and pans and granted wishes in exchange for curses, and drew lines on our faces that were faint by the dawn. And where there was salt in the pan there their letters were drawn. Tales of people who once slept under these same stars, of the ghosts of lost lovers, and the lovers of the dark.