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Racoons scuttle through them, heads down, purposefully padding under traffic, slipping in and out of their openings as they make their fat and furry rounds. A mother emerges, her babies impelled to follow and drawn to stay in the safety of their tunnel, 2 . . . 4 . . . 6 . . . masked worried faces thrust upward and pulled back within until she churrs and walks off and they follow churring under their breaths.

Once my cousin took me to one like a cave in a field in the suburb like an oracle of mysteries, a metal one tall enough to walk into, round and corrugated like a monstrous hair-dryer hose. Sunlight fell onto its mouth and reflected glancingly on the curving walls. Stones littered its floor and water drained into its darkness, chuckling like any brook, reverberating like a horror movie.

Storm sewers fill up in the wake of a heavy rain. Brown water covers my berm and laps at my sidewalk, twigs and dried grass clippings, sweet gum balls and candy wrappers among the froth. The street has a hump to shed water, so it's deeper by the mouths of the storm sewers. The water swirls, speckled with white froth, leaving a cross of flowing water in the center of the street. One year, when the sun had come out in a sky the color of a bruise, somebody down the street from us shot by, grinning, in his canoe.

By Ruby Jung. All rights reserved to the piece. I made the corners and you're welcome to copy and use them.