This Land

When I walk into Ray’s Tailor Shop, I immediately notice the ordered disorder of the two-room store. Directly in front of me, too near the front door, sits a table stacked with files and mail and a small radio propped up on a box. Towards the back of the room,…

Miss Anne lifts a rainbow-colored scarf from the small cage sitting on the picnic table in her backyard. Angry black eyes on a white, ratty-furred face peek out through the metal mesh.

“A possum,” Miss Anne, my 80-year-old neighbor, tells me. “I caught it in the cage last…