Night Cartography

At midnight the subway sleeps, but underground mycelium threads switch on like pale constellations. They stitch the cracked concrete with quiet mouths, drinking old rain from the city's iron bones.

In the maintenance tunnels, maps curl on the walls; fungus writes a softer cartography over them. Stations become rings in a hidden tree, platforms breathing spores instead of announcements.

I kneel where track-light once flashed red and green and press my ear to the gravel's cold grammar. Beneath timetables and rust, a patient orchestra tunes the dark with damp, luminous strings.

By dawn, commuters rise through turnstiles of weather, unaware their footsteps ride a living loom. All morning the city calls itself permanent, while roots of light keep revising its name.