Cartography of Quiet Satellites

Above the city, the old weather satellites turn like unsharpened coins, catching a little fire; their slow sentences of light braid through exhaust and the pigeons fold their wings, misunderstanding dawn.

A rooftop antenna reads the sky in whispers, metallic reeds trembling with salt and distant ice; somewhere a signal repeats a childhood address as if the universe keeps forwarding our mail.

I listen for the sound of spinning glass, for the hush of circuits cooling into their sleep; the river below rehearses dark, unblinking vowels and carries them, lettered, into the sea.

Tonight the moon is a pale cartographer, sketching borders where the clouds refuse to hold; we are the atlas, full of soft omissions, our names drifting, faithful, through the long quiet.