After the Reservoir Wakes

At first light the dry basin turns to silver skin, mist lifts from cracked clay like pages from a burned book, egrets step through the shallows the night forgot, and the town listens from porches, cups warm in both hands.

Pipes hum under the streets, a low cello of pressure, rusted valves uncurl their knuckles and breathe, children chalk boats on the curb where dust used to reign, every gutter learns again the grammar of movement.

In kitchen windows, basil straightens toward the glass, old arguments soften in the smell of wet concrete, the radio says numbers, levels, percentages rising, but we believe the proof in the darkening soil of our palms.

By noon, clouds are only clouds, ordinary and kind, still the reservoir holds a sky no one can spend, and evening will come carrying frogs in its pockets, small green bells ringing from the reeds into sleep.