mend the seam

A wild flower flickered in the Monkey King's palm—small as proof, loud as a crown He taught it tricks of wind and riddle-speech, to cart the dusk and tumble kingdoms down Its petals rewrote maps: veins as poems, each fold a compass that makes old borders frown So from that stubborn bloom a new legend grew, stitching history to song and earning its own renown

At dusk the Monkey King cupped the bloom like lantern-light for vanished vows, Each petal exhaled a roster of ruins, names folded into the hush of boughs, It remembers our names, soft as ash, murmured into the river's slow mouth, Farms unlatched their memories; the moon stitched back the silhouettes of towns, It remembers our names, a reed-song passing under bridges and through crowns, The flower—

The flower cracked like lacquer and a fleet of small doors sailed free, each a neighborhood unmooring itself into possibility Furrows loosened into linen lungs that breathed out markets and swans; clay chimneys grew legs and paced toward the river's first name The Monkey King's grin unraveled into paper cranes that flapped whole houses into the sky, stitching roofs into constellations of sale and祈

He crooned the petals into a round-song, tucking eaves and shutters into murmured seams, Paper cranes folded softer, trading flight for the slow rocking of an old mother's breath, Market cries melted into hums; lamps learned the lull of two patient notes repeated, And the bloom kept sewing that small circle through alleys — hush now, sleep the city whole.

Petals lean into a low choir, folding streetlamp vowels into a single slow breath, Shutters answer with soft consonants; windows blink like sleeping syllables one by one, The river hushes its gossip, oars nestle and market scales tip their silver dreams home, Beneath that gentle unison, memory thins to a pulse at the wrist and the whole city exhales into cradle-night.

A tin-snap startled the choir; the lull's seam split where a loose shutter found a voice, Paper cranes froze mid-gesture, then toppled like shy birds knocked by a thrown pebble, Roofs sent down a staccato of pots and hinges; the river hiccupped as if someone had cleared a throat, The Monkey King blinked—his grin scattered into a flurry, and the bloom flung open a cluster of urgent doorways.

He cupped his grin like a needle, threading moon through the tear with a practiced thumb, Petals pressed the ragged edges until the night learned how to hold its breath again, Paper cranes folded their wings back into lull, roofs slid like well-oiled palms and shutters spoke in single, careful clicks, The bloom sealed the rent with a hush that tasted of saved promises; the river took our names and