Fountain Almanac

The fountain is drained for winter, its basin a pale saucer of granite and coins, a puddle of rust where wishes went to sleep, and a green film rehearses spring in silence.

A maintenance truck arrives at dawn, hoses curl like slow animals in the frost, water returns, cold and metallic, and light skates over the surface, thin as breath.

Algae wakes, a quiet arithmetic, turning sun into oxygen, minute bubbles that rise like the smallest clocks, ticking the basin back to blue.

Passersby glance and keep walking, their cuffs catching a mist they won't name, while the fountain, day by day, keeps an almanac no calendar can hold.