Receiver on the Rooftop

On the rooftop, a dish turns like a slow flower, catching syllables shed by passing aircraft. Rain beads on the metal, a fretful percussion, and the city below hums its low string.

I tune by breath, by the shiver in my wrists, the way static opens like a door in winter. Somewhere a lighthouse clicks through fog, somewhere a mother sings to a kettle.

The antenna writes thin hieroglyphs in air, sparks brief as insects before sleep. I think of oceans hauling their dark cargo, of glaciers chewing their own names.

When the signal fades, I gather the wires, coil them like vines around my arm. Silence arrives, not empty, but seeded, a sky of small seeds waiting for light.