Library of Storm Drains

After the downpour, the curb becomes a shelf, lamplit water carrying leaves like dog-eared pages, each gutter a quiet aisle between feet.

Under the grate, the air is cool and iron-sweet; coins glitter as commas, a spider keeps watch, and the city’s noise arrives distilled, syllable by drip.

I kneel to listen to the map of runoff, how silt and seed rehearse a new grammar, how the street learns to spell itself in currents.

By morning the sun dries the margins, but the sound of turning water stays, a book still open somewhere beneath our steps.