Signal Orchard

The hill keeps its old broadcast tower, ladder of rust and rain, a spine against the fog. Pines lean in like listeners, needles beading with unsent sentences.

Below, the town unspools its morning thread, chimneys writing slow cursive in the cold. A dog barks once, then the sound lifts, caught in wires like laundry in wind.

I walk the service road with a pocketful of coins, not for payphones, but to hold their weight. Each step is a small antenna, drawing the hum of things that never finished speaking.

When the sun arrives, it is not a flare but a glaze, coating the tower, the hill, my hands. The fog thins to a ghost orchard, and the air tastes of metal and thaw.