The Orchard of Borrowed Satellites

An orchard grows above the roofs, small moons in wire baskets, each one humming with a map of weather no one remembers naming.

I walk the ladder of my own breath, the rungs made of quiet, unkept hours, and pick a light that tastes like tin and the first frost of a long letter.

Below, the city keeps its pockets open; coins of rain fall through to morning, stitching the pavement to the river with a thread the color of old iron.

I think of all the hands that built the sky, how their shadows still lift the ladders, and how we store the dark in our sleep like seeds waiting for a softer gravity.