Transit Weather

At five, the station roof begins to thaw into copper, pigeons comb sparks from the power lines, a woman in a green coat cups steam like a small planet, and every departure board blinks with borrowed stars.

Beneath the tracks, the river rehearses another language, syllables of bottle glass, reed, and diesel rain; a bicycle leans against the floodwall, bright as a struck note, its front wheel holding a crescent of last night’s moon.

Buses kneel and rise, kneel and rise, as if the city were praying through its knees; newspapers open like startled wings, headlines smelling of ink and wet iron.

When the sun finally clears the grain silos, it does not arrive all at once. It travels window to window, learning our names from the fog on the glass.