Devil's Night 2022

We had no words to give weight and form to the feeling of cool October nights in Detroit. After we smashed the winking eyes of streetlights the dark on the streets pressed its body close and wrapped its cloak around us; and we could not speak.

We had no words dark enough for the Devil’s Night moon – fat, full, and silver – that we could not smash. It shined white on us as we crept between hedges and houses, crawled onto roofs, and dashed through alleys. It slashed at our heels as we hopped rattly, metal fences silently as alley cats.

We had no words for these: the feel of dark the moon weaving silver onto the metal webs of city fences the ships screaming into the mouth of the Rouge River, and the lights of tall buildings blinking through the stinging smoke of a burning Detroit.

—Carmen Lowe, The Metaphysics of Vandalism (1989)