Today seven chickens are killed in our neighbor’s yard. Did you see which dog killed my chickens? he asks. No, we say, we didn’t see a dog. But, in the aftermath, we do see a vulture, beak picking through flesh like clean linen. Later, we hang our laundry out. If we still lived in Indiana, sparrows would flock the yard, dirty our socks before we could bring them in. Not here. Here, we’ve learned that fences make good neighbors. We’ve learned, too, that dead things make better ones.
