Tin Orbit at Dawn

The city roof held heat like a sleeping animal, and above it the satellites went by, small coins rubbed thin by distance, briefly catching the sun no one else could see.

In the alley, a bicycle chain ticked in the wind; a moth kept testing the blue porch light, as if light were a door with a patient lock, as if night were willing to be persuaded.

I thought of all the messages crossing overhead, our names folded into pulses, our grief translated to clean arithmetic, then flung from tower to cloud to unseen hand.

By morning, the windows would refill with faces, coffee steam, invoices, weather. But for one held breath before dawn, the whole neighborhood sounded like tidewater, metal, leaves, and a far engine humming home.