The Hour When the Cage Sings

She is the soft rebellion of eleven o’clock in the morning, when the sun forgets it should be serious and spills instead like melted sherbet through the lashes of the sky. Her hair is a river that chose to remember every sunset it ever swallowed, curling around roses that bloom without asking permission, around the astonished blue eye of a bird that once forgot how to be captive. The pocket watch at her throat ticks in waltz-time, counting not hours but the quiet revolutions of joy, each second hand kissing the same question: Haven’t we already arrived? A key lies beside her like a sleeping promise, gold enough to unlock anything except the way her own reflection keeps smiling back, younger every time she dares to look. The teacup steams hymns of orange blossom and mischief. The butterfly wears her most scandalous orange wings as though late for its own coronation. And the little bird in the open cage no longer sings of freedom, it sings because the morning finally learned her name and answered in color.