The city has put on stripes today,
a pyramid torso in rainbow wool.

Streets run around it like loose threads,
blue avenues knitting the blocks together.

Balconies pile up like folded T-shirts,
magenta, mustard, cyan, repeat.

Somewhere a planner whispers:
this was supposed to be efficient.

But the houses lean in, gossiping in color,
forming cul-de-sacs of unnecessary joy.

The central plaza is a hexagon of maybe,
waiting for a fountain, a protest, a kiss.

Brutalism here forgot its grey vocabulary
and started talking in markers instead—

a whole quarter of concrete
secretly auditioning to become a cardigan.