Weather Report from the Empty Observatory

The dome unbuttons itself to dawn, rust flaking down like dried petals. Inside, the telescope waits with one cold lens full of yesterday’s fire.

Swallows stitch the rafters with black thread, quick commas over dust and star charts. A kettle left by some vanished caretaker sweats rainwater into a tin cup of sky.

I turn the wheel and the roof groans open, slow as a whale surfacing through sleep. Constellations arrive in the metal bones, old names tasting of salt and iron.

By morning, light floods every staircase. The planets retreat behind blue glass, but on the desk a circle of moon-white dust keeps the shape of a hand that reached and reached.