The Sisyphus Cylinder does not rest.
It carries us all in its hollow rib cage,
orbit after orbit,
a pressure cooker of breath and sweat.

In the narrow night,
screens flicker across the arching ceiling,
stars projected, always the same.
Sometimes they glitch:
constellations split,
heaven replaced by ad slogans.

Stalls packed tight with smoke and spice,
voices layered louder than engines.
The air tastes of pepper and frying oil;
an open mouth tricks an empty belly.
The bells ring tri-po-let to signal
end of leisure, back to labor.
We are pressed against one another
like grain in a millstone,
ground to flour by rotation.

Factories are stacked on factories,
cable cars sway on fraying lines,
machines spill into rivers,
every park already swallowed
by stacks of scrap shacks.

Praise the spin.
Praise the gravity it fakes.
Praise the river running upside down,
where children play in the reflection
of a thousand overlapping dawns.
Sisyphus rolls on.
We are his stone.