Lanterns for the Bent City

We descend through a blue that keeps its own weather, streets curved like ribs, windows breathing in salt. The city is a hush of glass and coral, each door a soft hinge of light.

Every evening, the keepers wake the algae, stroke green fire into bowls and gutters. Currents comb the avenues, braiding silt and song, the lanterns answering with slow, bright vowels.

Messages travel in bubbles, handwritten and brief, rising past old statues with their eyes of limestone. We read them by the sway of kelp, by pulse and tide, learning time is a creature that migrates.

Up above is rumor—stars, weather, a ceiling of air. Down here, we wear our constellations on our sleeves. When the lights gather, the whole city leans toward dawn, and the sea remembers its own name.