Steam Radiator

The radiator whispered like breath beneath the old window (half opened for mercy) where cold fingers of air braided themselves with steam and the snow stayed only for seconds dancing above the sill in the breeze. The sofa, burgundy and bruised, sagged like an old confession. I curled into its velvet hush and watched the cupola burn gold (above the parking lot at dusk) through the veil of falling snow. This was my aerie, thin-walled and tranquil, where I painted, and read, and wrote my way into becoming. Below, the café breathed lentils and clove, hippies hunched at secondhand tables, hands wrapped around chipped mugs (arguing softly about Hesse) as incense tangled with the steam. I read Siddhartha in the original, while Han Fook waited in the margins, quiet as smoke, his silence teaching me to listen without answers.