The day before fall, I sit in the backyard amid the lush wreckage of summer's end. By the patio, my eighteen-month-old daughter is pulling soft caterpillar heads from stems of fountain grass touched with gold. Grapevines dangle unripe buttons of fruit down the back fence. Erupting from the grass are dandelions big as ferns, their puffs long ago snatched by the wind. Around the yard’s perimeter, weeds as high as my thighs exalt with abandon. The dog bounds by like Pepé Le Pew in search of love, disappearing into a feathery wave of crabgrass that flanks the north fence.

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