Cartography of Rust

In the yard, a bicycle leans like an old question, chain freckled with orange constellations. Rain has been writing its slow alphabet on the spokes, each letter a thin gleam.

I touch the handlebar and the cold answers, not with words but with the hush of iron. The past is a garage of scents—oil, leaves— where light sifts down and forgets its hurry.

A sparrow hops the fence, quick as a small clock, pecking at seeds, at the edge of morning. Even rust has a music, a soft percussion of time filing away the bright.

Somewhere a train passes, a distant seam, stitching the horizon to itself again. I watch the bicycle hold its quiet stance, map of all the places we meant to go.