Rooftop Equations

At dawn the city unbuttons its scaffolds, cranes stand like herons in a river of fog, windows sip first light through thin blue glass, and somewhere bread rises behind a steel door.

On the rooftop garden, mint bruises the wind, bees map their gold equations between antennas, rainwater drums softly in plastic barrels, as if small oceans rehearsed in the dark.

I carry yesterday in my coat lining, ticket stubs, a key, the smell of solder and oranges; the morning takes each object, names it weather, turns metal warm enough to trust.

By noon even the shadows learn to loosen, pipes hum a low violin under the street, and the whole block leans forward, listening for seeds splitting open inside concrete.