The Library of Migrating Shadows

The town keeps its daylight in crates, slatted with dust and the faint perfume of cedar, and at dusk the shadows unpack themselves.

They climb the stairwells of empty factories, settle on rails like patient birds, learning the weather of rust and wind.

I walk among them with a lantern of rain, reading the spines of silhouettes, each title a season I once mispronounced.

When the morning trucks arrive, they fold away, soft as maps, pliable as skin, and the library moves on, quiet, unmistakable.