Cartography of Rainlight

At dawn the city wore a skin of rainlight, windows held small oceans, trembling at buses, and every gutter carried silver fish of sky toward the river's rusted throat.

I walked the bridge where pigeons warmed their feet on cables humming like distant cellos; beneath me, barges moved as patient continents, stacked with oranges, tarps, and sleep.

In my pocket, a seed from last autumn's pear clicked against my keys, a tiny metronome. I thought of gardens hidden in concrete courtyards, roots rehearsing their soft, unarmed uprisings.

By noon the clouds unstitched and lifted. The wet stone gave back the sun in broken chords. I pressed the seed into a crack beside the tram stop and left it there, listening for green.