Cartography of Static

On the roof, the dish tilts like a pale ear, listening to the city’s throat— its low vowels of traffic, the soft consonants of rain.

I tune the old receiver until the stations fray, between two bright voices a thin river appears, and I wade in, ankle-deep in hiss and distant storms.

There is a language there that isn’t words, a swarm of moths striking a porch light, each wing a brief map of where you once lived.

I hold still and let the static braid my name, salt and spark, a wire humming in the dark, and for a moment the silence is not empty but vast.