Salt Map of the Errand

I carry a grocery list like a small sail through blocks that smell of rust and rosemary, streetlights blinking as if rehearsing fireflies. A bus exhales, and the morning yawns open.

At the corner, the florist trims the day with silver scissors; petals fall like quiet coins. A stray dog reads my footsteps, then decides to follow the tune of a distant siren.

Inside the market, ice sweats on the fish and the apples hold their breath in red clusters. The cashier hums a song without words, and my change is warm, as if held by a palm.

On the walk back, a cloud drifts low as laundry and the list dissolves, salt on the tongue of wind. Home waits like a cup set out to cool, its rim ringed with the outline of my return.