Cartographer of Fog

At daybreak the city unbuttons its scaffolds of mist, streetlamps drip amber into puddles like small brass moons, a bicyclist rings one clear note and it widens, the avenue learning its own name again.

On the river, barges move as if pulled by breath alone, cranes lift silence from the docks in slow iron arcs, gulls stitch white commas through the smoke-blue air, and every window rehearses a different weather.

I walk with a folded map that refuses straight answers, its paper grain full of rain, thumbprints, departures, corners soft as bread crust in my pocket, an atlas made mostly of places I missed.

By noon the fog climbs back into the high bridges, leaving railings wet, bright, and temporary, as if the whole town were drawn in water first, then trusted to sunlight one careful line at a time.