Mycelium Beneath the Crosswalk

Before the buses clear their throats, the street is a wet slate. Under paint-stripes, white as gull bones, rain seeps into hairline cracks. There, a hush of threads keeps trading weather in the dark, a patient alphabet written in root and rust.

Shoes hammer noon above them, headlines, alarms, spilled coffee. Still the hidden braid passes sugar, warning, memory, lanterning from dandelion to maple to the mossed brick wall, a parliament with no mouths, deciding how spring will arrive.

At dusk the manhole lids breathe out warm metal breath. Steam lifts; the city believes it is only itself. But below, pale fans open like listening hands, and the soil hums low, a cello tuning in rain.

When I cross, I feel the asphalt give one quiet note. Not collapse, not pity, just room for another footfall. Night gathers in puddles; neon shivers into stars. Beneath us, the unseen choir keeps its slow green time.