Cartography of a Kitchen at Dawn

The kettle remembers the lake in its throat, steam lifting like a quiet flag over the small republic of plates. A spoon leans against the window, listening to light arrive.

Bread opens its warm book, crumbs like pale constellations spilling across the counter’s night. I trace a shoreline in butter, and the day begins to breathe.

A radio murmurs a weather map, fronts and futures sliding on glass; outside, a crow edits the sky. The sink fills with rinsed moons, each one thinning toward morning.

What we do here is ordinary, and yet the room keeps a halo: sun touching dust, dust turning gold. Even the floorboards take a long, soft oath to hold us while we wake.