Cartography of Quiet Machines

In the attic of the city, transformers hum like sleeping whales in a museum of weather. Their copper ribs hold the storm in rehearsal, thin sparks rehearsing a language of rain.

A service elevator climbs with a jar of bees, someone ferrying light to a rooftop garden. The bees are a small republic, their wings writing minutes in air no one keeps.

Below, traffic is a river of polished stones, each headlight a brief cathedral window. I read the streets like a palm, every line ending in a fork of somewhere and not-yet.

Night folds its map and slips it into my coat. The city keeps listening to its own organs, machinery in prayer, the quieting valves. I walk home carrying a pocket of weather.