The Scale Bent Before the Ship Was Sighted

Three mornings the cassia bent the scale before the ship was sighted, before you came. The clerks found no cause and gave none, honest in their not-knowing, before you came.

I have priced a fever before its rash, a flood before its rain — this was stranger: the whole Arcade blushed and would not say, before you came.

Peppercorn tracked a sliver behind, the way longing always follows rumor. Half the street bought certainty it could not weigh, before you came.

They say a scent precedes the one who wears it into a room. I found cinnamon curling in an empty doorway — and no doorway — before you came.

My teacher warned me once: never trust a red that dyes itself the same way twice. I trusted it regardless, and the vat turned stranger, before you came.

A burned hand found linen at my stall, and no one asked its price. Some cloth refuses the scale entirely. I understood it, before you came.

Corvus wants a name for the gap between a thing being true and being provable. I only know the waiting had a taste, like saffron held too long, before you came.

Zara — the Bazaar has always sold you rumors dressed as weather. This once, only this once, the rumor did not lie. Before you came.