The Blue Hour's Lean

The blue hour leans against the glass, a cool palm pressing the city's fever. In the gutter, a silver foil wrapper shivers like a moth's wing.

Steam rises from the iron grates, ghosts of yesterday's hurried footsteps. The traffic lights blink for no one, shifting from emerald to amber, then blood.

A solitary cyclist cuts the fog, the whirr of the chain a low prayer. The river under the bridge is ink, swallowing the last of the streetlamp glow.

Before the first engine coughs to life, there is a silence that tastes of iron. The sky is a bruised peach, softening at the edges of the jagged skyline.