Rooftop Language

At midnight the desalination plant breathes through a row of silver lungs beside the harbor. Moonlight salts every railing into frost, and gulls sleep on pipes warm as animal backs.

Inside, membranes hum like long violin strings, straining the sea through a patience thinner than skin. Brine returns to darkness, heavy with memory; fresh water gathers, clear as a held note.

On the catwalk, a worker lifts his thermos, steam unfurling like a small weather system. He listens to pumps trade thunder in the walls and thinks of his daughter filling a glass at dawn.

By morning the city will never taste the night, only cold brightness slipping from its taps. But here the ocean has been taught another language, and every drop leaves speaking softly of light.