soft iron hymn

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

The bloom began to inventory the impossible: receipts for storms, a ledger of vanished streets and small apologies It listed a moon with pockets, a compass that read which childhood you'd be tomorrow, a church spattered in origami birds Rivers were filed under "waiting," mountains cataloged by the taste of their shadows, borders stamped with lullaby signatures The Monkey King watched the list sign

So the bloom began to pare the ledgers into three-breath prayers, each entry a small sky pocketed moon emptied river holds a child's name until morning opens its palm origami church bows

A thin frost hems the bloom's edges, each petal folding like a closed shop window Its ledger exhales white filaments into the lane, listing which doors may dream through winter The Monkey King tucks his laughter under a down coat and listens as leaves file away their names The flower files the year like a receipt, stamping every memory with a patient, polite forgetting

Petals become panes, thin cathedrals catching the sun and holding it like confession Each sliver rings with stolen laughter, a high, small tinkling that speaks of loss in clear notes The Monkey King's hands trace the ledger's frost and lift out names now crystallized, immaculate and precise So the bloom arranges mourning into facets—every remembrance shaved to clarity, unbearably lovely

Frost unbuttons at the bloom's rim; panes loosen and lace the gutter with fingertip light Sidewalks cough up old receipts and a bouquet of coin-voices — steam knitting alleys into sentences The Monkey King tucks his grin behind a mailbox and watches origami wings slap at subway grates The ledger bleeds names into puddles; each ring answers from asphalt as the city learns to speak again

The tunnel hums; the bloom tilts, braiding iron lull with the train's slow heartbeat Ticket-stubs blossom into soft names, commuters unravel in their seats and cradle old addresses Origami birds nest in the vents, pecking at the signal's metronome until the ledger breathes in time The Monkey King rocks a pocketed receipt, smoothing grief into a small, steady sleep along the tracks

The rails take the city's forgetting and bend it into a tempered chorus that rocks the night to sleep Ticket-names fold in coat pockets like warm coins; the ledger exhales and old owing becomes hush The bloom shuts its panes, a map sealed into a palm; origami birds lift with the last of the receipts The Monkey King unhooks his grin and sends the new legend down the line—dawn learns the chorus and,