At night the coyotes run through the hydro field behind our house.
This never used to happen. These packs of mangy, skinny dogs used to live on the outskirts of town, west of Kalar Road in the vast stretch of scrub bush that separates Niagara Falls from St. Catharines. This area was a void, a no man’s land, but now it is gone. Now it is subdivisions, twisting crescents of newly paved roads and prefabricated houses that mark the flat land like a string of chicken pox. These subdivisions have no trees, no telephone poles, and no hydro lines. Everything is hidden, the necessities of civilization conveniently buried so that the neighbourhoods resemble a scrupulous facsimile of existence. At night, when it is clear, one can see across town. The hotels and casinos stand like a neon Avalon rising out of the mist of the falls.