The Cartographer of Sleep

I open the atlas of my eyelids, where cities are built of slow-breathing whales and the streetlights hum like distant looms. A river of ink loops through my palms.

In one province, a staircase rises from a lake, each step a different weather. I climb until snow becomes warm as bread and hear a bell ringing inside a pear.

The moon is a bowl left out for moths; they drink and leave glitter on the rim. I fold their wings into my coat pocket, map their routes with a needle of light.

At dawn the pages close by themselves. The room returns—plain as a cup on a sill— but my fingers still smell of salt and cedar, and the map keeps unfolding under my skin.