Threshold Hours

Sparrows rehearse their arguments before the city wakes—harsh, stuttering calls that map the darkness into quarters. The sky bleeds its secrets slowly, a watercolor running backwards from night.

A dog barks three streets over, sound traveling cleaner through still air, and somewhere a kettle begins its electric hum— the world turning on, each small noise a brick laid in the foundation of day.

The streetlights don't know yet they should go dark. They burn amber-stubborn, stars stubborn above them, both refusing to acknowledge the other's ending, this gossamer hour when everything waits.

My hands are still cold from sleep. The kitchen tiles remember the night, and I remember the dream I cannot speak— some threshold crossed that the morning will smooth away like water on stone.