Night Orchard of Satellites

At dusk the rooftops unbutton their tin throats, and rainwater keeps a small orchestra in gutters. Laundry lines sway like patient metronomes, counting the breath between one window and the next.

A tram glides past, full of amber faces, each one lit as if by a candle carried inside the chest. The river turns its dark page without complaint, inked with bridges and the soft erasure of fog.

On the corner, a florist sweeps fallen petals into a red drift that looks almost like fire. I smell earth, diesel, crushed stems, evening bread-- the city tuning itself by touch, not sight.

When night arrives, it does not close the scene; it threads silver through antennas, cranes, wet stone. Somewhere a violin climbs one narrow stair of air, and every brick remembers how to glow from within.