His friends: mailboxes, front doors in all colors (grayed by night), mud-puddles (bugs and tadpoles sleeping), the space between fence posts. The third time the boy leaves his house to find the wolves in the park, it is nighttime and everything speaks to him. This chorus delights him and the sidewalk is solid. Unlike the first and second times he made his way, he is wearing shoes. Recently, he learned how to put on his Vans by himself. 

 He also learned just how to unlock the front door. In the evenings, nearing the time to sleep, his mother closes the front door over the screen door, which is the only door most of the time and also the boy's favorite door. When the crickets have woken up and the tide of cars has pulled back, the boy likes to sit in front of the screen and look out at the street. Sometimes he imagines the wolves will come by. 

 He can almost see them walking proud and silver on the dusky asphalt, planting their feet around the cracks as to not break their mothers' backs, but he knows the wolves don't live by his house. They don't live in the garage. They don't live in garbage cans. Not behind tricycles, either, nor under the slumbering cars with their bright eyes un-bright. 

 The wolves live in the park. The boy is careful not to step on a single bug. 

 A spider-- under the stars, the little boy freezes. "Hey, daddy long legs," the boy says to him. "Your home is in the ground." 

 Spindly, pokey, the spider dances around the greeting, so the boy tip-toes past. 

 "I could dig you a hole," the boy whisper-calls back, "But I don't have any tools."

 The spider pirouettes into a drainage ditch. In a morning time, and if his mother said he could, the boy would like to follow the spider into the ditch, to have an adventure somewhere cool and leafy. 

 Spider gone, the boy makes other friends. Hello, hose-snakes. Hello front doors and sleeping sprinkler heads. There are fires in the sun, they whisper. Climb down your front steps into the ocean. Let's play tic-tac-toe.

 One mailbox glares from above, waving a little red flag. The boy reaches up and pats the side of the mailbox's face. He knows the mailbox will have a good sleep and feel better in the morning. He always does. 

Almost to the park, he yawns.  

He likes the park in the daytime, likes his mother, his father, his sister, and the sun, who are all there as well. Red slides and a ladder, a purple roof and a aqua rocking horse, a dome full of tiny metal beads that sounds like a storm when you twist it in its socket-- his own castle, his own kingdom, like somewhere from a storybook or somewhere in the clouds. He likes the woodchips and the gravel. He likes the swings and having a snack. 

He wishes the wolves could be there during the day, too, but they like the stars better and take their naps on the other side of the moon when it's too bright.  

Stepping over the threshold from sidewalk into park, the grass welcomes him. 

And there they are across the field. 

The wolf council, 8 or 12 of them. Purple silhouettes in the dark, silver eyes matching or made of the stars. Grays and limber limbs, taller than the boy, silent. They have long snouts and have lived maybe forever so far, and if the boy squints, they almost melt into the night.