lullaby refrain

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.

Gravity slackened between eaves; cobblestones rose like small moons drifting through the market's throat A sack of bargaining-sounds ballooned into paper birds that hummed invoices and dissolved into starlight Lanterns inhaled the river, exhaling constellations; alleys braided themselves into slow tides of shoeprints The bloom slipped through these loosened seams, planting improbable doorways that

opened like small moons into alleys that traded breath for starlight, stalls hawking whole constellations by whisper Lanterns learned the language of sighs; moths kept ledgers of silvered hush between their wings The river turned its face to the sky and ferried lullabies downstream, each ripple a street that only night remembers Above, the Monkey King traced a crooked grin across the heavens, pin‑

ning the moon like a pin, and from the eaves a ring of feathered metronomes took up the new time, They threaded hollow hoots into counterpoint, braiding rooftops and alleys into rhythmic measures, When a triple pulse landed, shutters sighed open like lungs and ledgers rewrote themselves into lullabies, The bloom folded a petal into a staff; the Monkey King bowed to their cadence and the city kept

Metronomes fold into the hush and alleys close like hands cupping light, Paper cranes settle as quiet roofs; the Monkey King's grin unwinds into a soft watch above, The bloom tucks its final petal into the river's pocket where names lie dreaming, untroubled, Night repeats its patient two-note chorus and the stitched city breathes whole, then sleeps.