Evening Shelter

The starlings gather on the power lines like punctuation marks scattered across a sentence the sky can no longer read. Their bodies hold the last copper light before it bleeds into the waiting dark.

Below, the street lamps stir awake, amber eyes opening one by one, while shadows pool between the buildings— small oceans where the day goes to rest.

A single bird lifts off, circles once, returns to the line as if remembering something just out of reach.

The world turns its face away and the birds know to hold still, to press themselves close to the humming wires, safe in the hum of becoming night.