Cartography of Thunder

Tonight the city hangs its wet coat on the river rail, streetlamps bloom in puddles like cut oranges, every window exhales a pale brass note, and the tramlines hum with rain-remembered light.

On the bridge, a courier pauses, helmet in hand, listening to thunder fold itself into the hills. His breath makes small ghosts over the handlebars, as if dawn were a match not yet struck.

Beneath us, the water carries shredded headlines, a receipt, a feather, one bright candy wrapper. All of it turning, turning toward the locks, as though the night were learning to write in cursive.

When morning arrives it will smell of iron and pear skins, of bakeries opening their warm wooden mouths. We will step out, pockets lined with weather, and call this survival by its older name: music.