Atlas of Unsent Letters

In the attic, the radio keeps its soft hiss, a small climate of yesterday. Dust rises like a city seen from far above, each mote a street that leads nowhere.

I open the tin box of letters never mailed; the paper smells of rain that couldn't decide. Envelopes flex and sigh, pale lungs, addresses like constellations in a sky without night.

Outside, a storm gathers its choreography, thunder practicing in the alley's metallic throats. The window trembles as if it remembers a name and cannot place it.

I read one line, then another, slow as tide. Ink loosens, a dark river returning to sea. Somewhere, a mailbox waits with a red flag raised, bright as a promise that never learned to close.