The Cartographer of Quiet

Morning arrives like a careful archivist, indexing fog along the river’s ribs. A heron stands, a pale apostrophe, between what was said and what was withheld.

I unroll a map made of unspoken rooms, corridors pressed into paper by years of listening. There are doors drawn only in graphite, and the ocean is a margin filled with breathing.

In the market, oranges glow like small suns that have learned the patience of baskets. Voices braid and loosen, braid and loosen, until the air becomes a loom of brief weather.

At dusk, the city folds its metal wings. Streetlights bloom with the patience of moths, and I mark the places where stillness gathers— under bridges, inside a cup, in the soft hinge of a kiss.