Tidepool of Dust

A wind of pale cumin lifts from the avenue, umbrellas held like black shells against noon. On the median, a dandelion opens its clock, telling no one the hour, telling the bees.

I walk through a construction site of light, rebar ribs blue in the heat, a crane slow as a heron on one knee, listening to the ground rehearsal of trucks.

In the library of my jacket pocket, a receipt keeps the scent of a winter bus. It curls and unspools—salted paper tidepool— where small fish of ink flicker and vanish.

At dusk, the city tilts its mirrors, windows catching the last orange coin. We are all brief lanterns in a moving house, carried past ourselves by the dark.