splattered sprays dried since around last night judging by the stench of meat, ripening, diffusing to the summer air my mother, unconcerned. her searching eye pointing down her nose at the evidence footprints to deduction, just a single suspect:
raccoon!
my doorstop, wedged at the foot of the outdoor refrigerator? dislodged, discarded on the lawn, child’s play, a paltry attempt, naive at best.
step-father, his wrath incurred, to the local hardware store i’ll stay in the car
an improved latch, confounding, its inner mechanisms hidden from assailants? scrutinized, probed, interrogated before succumbing to superior dexterity.
mom, her stocks plundered, down the stairs into the storage closet behind the boxes on boxes under the tarp help me grab this then back out to the garage
an adjustable gate, tamper-proof, fortressing our stash? surveilled, reconnoitered, somehow compromised, a month of nights pass, the perpetrator gone serial then seen through my bedroom window, moonlight starlit lamplit
a silent bandit, gracefully dropping from the branch of an oak over the fence behind the gate right in front of our refrigerator.
a sheet of cold rolled tin, stapled around the trunk of the old tree unforgiving, unscalable, unyielding, strangling, absolute.
nights later, the culprit spotted down the lane, jaws clamped around our neighbour’s scraps, followed eagerly by her