Weather for the Abandoned Mall

The skylight is a broken cup of light, rain gathers there and pours in slow stitches, threading the food court with a cold needle, a seamstress humming in an empty throat.

Escalators sleep with their teeth bared, tin steps holding the posture of ascent; a sneaker, half-swallowed by mold, keeps time with the drip, the drip—small metronome.

The fountain has gone to seed, green hush filling the basin where coins once dreamed; every leaf is a soft receipt, a promise that no cashier remembers to print.

Outside, wind lifts the shutters like eyelids, and the building blinks at a bruised horizon; I stand inside the blink, listening for the weather of a place forgetting me.