The Map of Untraveled Water

I keep a map of water no boat has named, blue seams stitched under the table’s grain, rivers remembering the weight of snow long after the hills have learned to sleep.

In the library of storms, I open jars of fog; each holds a shoreline that never met its tide. The room hums like a shell held to the ear— a rumor of gulls, a patience of salt.

Tonight the sink is a small observatory. I watch the faucet rehearse its meteor light, each drop a traveler leaving a warm planet, crossing the dark to begin as a ring.

If I ever sail, I will follow the quiet roads, the ones the cartographer left in pencil. There will be a bay shaped like a held breath, and a door of rain swinging on its hinges.