Cartography of the Unnamed

I unfold a map no one printed, creases like riverbeds in the palm, each blank square a field of breath where footsteps have not yet learned their names.

Morning lays its thin mercury on the windows, and the city invents its weather as it goes— steam rising from grates, gulls wheeling, a compass needle dancing at the edge of salt.

I walk the perimeter of a forgotten park, bench slats smelling of rain and varnish, my shadow a quiet surveyor taking measure of the unkept light.

By dusk the streets have changed their alphabet, lamps writing soft vowels on the pavement. I close the map and keep the margins, a pocket of white where the future can settle.