When the Rooftops Remember Rivers

All June the city wore dust like powdered glass. Air conditioners droned, a single tired vowel. Pigeons drank shadow from satellite dishes. Under asphalt, old creekbeds held their breath.

Then at dusk a bruise of cloud unstitched the heat. First drops tapped fire escapes like cautious pianists. Neon bled into puddles, red becoming lantern fish. A bus exhaled and the street began to listen.

Children set paper boats loose along curbside currents. Tomato vines on balconies lifted their green wrists. Even the cranes at the new tower bowed, dripping. Somewhere a man laughed as if returning home.

By midnight the gutters were fluent with forgotten names. Manhole covers hummed like distant cellos. Morning would call this weather, just another storm; we knew it as the hour rooftops remembered rivers.