The Reservoir of Small Lights

On the hill behind the water plant, a chorus of moths keeps time with the sodium lamps, their wings a soft static against the dusk. I count the flashes and forget the numbers.

A train passes under the town like a thought, its windows unspooling a brief cinema of shoulders, paperback pages, the white hush of a child asleep with their shoes on.

Clouds lift their slow crates from the river. The wind turns, and the maples rehearse an ancient alphabet in green; I read nothing and feel fluent.

Later, rain comes down as if in translation, each drop a clear syllable on the roof. In the yard, puddles collect the sky’s small lights and keep them, turning the dark into a reservoir.