The Quiet Map of Moths

At the edge of town the desalination plant hums, a low brass note carried by wind through chain-link. Brine mist beads on my sleeves like small, cold constellations— I walk the service road and listen for the ocean's throat.

In the floodlights, moths draw their soft orbits, paper lanterns seeking a grammar of heat. Each wing a shorthand: dusted ash, velvet soot, a map of places no one names but everyone remembers.

I think of my mother labeling jars in the pantry, how her handwriting leaned, a reed in a creek. The way she saved twine, the way she saved time, looping it around the ordinary to keep it from fraying.

Beyond the fence, the city lets out a faint steam— doors unlatching, kettles switching off, trains thinning. The moths drift higher, released from their bright anchor, and the night folds its paper, refolding me inside.