The Cartography of Dust

At the attic window, wind is a patient clerk, turning each box into a minor country. Motes rise and hover like tarnished constellations over the green trunk that once crossed a river.

I unlatch a map of streets that no longer join, the paper freckled by old rain. Outside, the porch bell speaks in a small brass tongue, and the day smells of tin, cut fruit, far-off trains.

In the drawer, a bundle of letters breathes, their envelopes soft as onion skin. The ink has thinned to a whisper of graphite, yet every line still leans toward a vanished face.

A storm gathers somewhere over the fields, light stitched to light in the seams of cloud. I fold the map back into its crease of years, and carry the dust down to where the kettle sings.