Cartography of the Unlit Harbor

Tonight the harbor unthreads its lanterns, a seam of salt stitched to the dark, where ships are vowels the sea can't keep. I stand at the breakwater, tasting tin.

Maps are a kind of listening. I fold the wind into squares, and the gulls erase their names as if the air were chalk.

A lighthouse hums—low brass, a breath held under glass. Each window gathers a small weather, each mooring line, a muted bell.

I carry home the wet outline of piers, my pockets full of tide marks. In sleep, the harbor reopens and everything returns by way of sound.