Gutter Constellations

Rain unbuttons the avenue, slow and methodical, seams of tar breathing out a mineral sigh. In the gutter, moss gathers its green embers like a choir rehearsing under a bridge.

A bottlecap turns, a small moon caught in runoff, a thread of oil draws a dark iris on the water. The city hums its wires, a distant cello, and the algae keeps time with its soft, patient light.

I kneel, an astronomer of the low places, naming the damp constellations by touch— Velvet Beak, Sleep of Coins, Ladder of Rust— the sky inverted, held in a narrow channel.

By morning, the sun will edit the scene, evaporate the speech of puddles into air. Still, the moss will remember the map and stitch it again with the next small storm.