I am wandering around my backyard, which is covered in leaves. Narrow oak leaves with edges like the teeth of a bread knife, coffee brown from almost the moment they loose themselves from the tree, overlap with wide veiny sycamore leaves that fade slowly from flamboyant chartreuse to mottled gold to mahogany. The rattle of the dead leaves beneath my feet sound, in one moment, like bones breaking and, in the next, like a covey of quail lifting from the broomsedge.