Library of Weather

In the municipal archive, drawers breathe like sails, index cards the color of old lightning. A clerk lifts a folder and dust drifts as if a small, polite storm has been opened.

Some pages smell of apricots, some of subway iron; maps of fronts crossing neighborhoods at dusk. I press my palm to a September page and feel the pulse of heat that never learned to leave.

Outside, rain rehearses on the gutters, coins of water turned over and over. A cyclist passes with a trail of ozone, my sleeve damp, my name briefly weatherproofed.

I walk home with a catalog of winds, each one a different way to be undone. The city keeps its forecasts in the dark, and still they shine through the paper, humming.