The Cartographer of Fog

At dawn the harbor is a soft machine, its gears of gulls turning the pale air. I walk the pier, stitching quiet to water, each plank a sentence the tide refuses to finish.

A tugboat enters, haloed in damp, its horn a low brass note that loosens the day. Fog leans in like a friend with unnamed news, and the city behind me fades to a rumor of brick.

I map what I can: a buoy, a rope's fray, a glint of oil, the salt-sweet bite of diesel. The map is only breath, it will dissolve, but my hands keep moving, learning the vanishing.

When light finally sets its slow bone on the waves, the fog retreats, leaving wet signatures on metal. I fold the day and place it in my pocket, still warm, like a stone I carried for the sea.