After the Reservoir Opens

At dawn the reservoir unlatches its blue throat, and the city lifts cups of windows to drink. Pigeons walk the railing like patient punctuation, while light unties itself in silver knots.

Below, old pipes wake and begin their underground hymn, a bassline through brick, root, and sleeping stone. In kitchens, kettles bloom with weather, and mirrors gather breath like first rain on glass.

I carry a jar to the tap and hear mountains translated into pressure, into clear insistence. Somewhere upstream, snow is writing its last letter, one cold paragraph dissolving into my hands.

By noon the streets shine with ordinary miracles: a child watering dust into dark, fragrant soil, a baker rinsing flour from his wrists, clouds drifting over us like open reservoirs of time.