Blackout

The grid coughs once and the whole street forgets itself— refrigerators fall silent mid-sentence, the traffic light surrenders its colors to the dark.

Candles bloom in windows like slow yellow tulips. A neighbor I have never spoken to laughs at something across the alley, suddenly close.

We climb to the roof carrying our small flames. The skyline has unscrewed its thousand bulbs and handed the night back to whoever wants it.

And there—forgotten, patient, impossibly far— the stars step forward out of the wiped chalkboard, the old constellations clearing their throats.

We had paved over them with our brightness. Now the city holds its breath in the cooling dark, relearning the language of looking up.