Cartography of a Sleeping City

The city folds its bridges like an old map, creases of river ink drying on the air. Windows blink, then hold their breath, and the trams lie down, a quiet spine of steel.

In a laundromat's blue glow, coins remember hands, warm circles once passed from palm to palm. A shirt turns slowly, a pale moon in a drum, carrying someone else's weather.

On the rooftop, antennas comb the dark for signals that never arrive. Dust of stars, dust of traffic, dust of time settles on the skylights like a soft instruction.

Morning will unroll the avenues again, but for now the streets are a shallow sea. I walk its edge, listening for the tide, reading the foam for the names I've forgotten.