Signal Garden

At the edge of the train yard, rain tunes the rails, thin silver strings pulled through the throat of dawn. Puddles hold red signals like lantern-fruit, and the ballast stones breathe out last night’s heat.

A woman opens her umbrella of crows, black wings folding and unfolding over her shoulders. She walks past freight cars bandaged in rust, each one carrying a country of sleeping noise.

From the overpass, buses spill their warm windows, small aquariums drifting through vapor. Someone laughs below, and the sound keeps ringing, a coin dropped into a well of wet concrete.

By noon the clouds unbutton and drift apart; the tracks lie quiet, bright as new needles. Grass starts between ties, green as a whisper, and the whole yard listens for what will return.