Cartography of the Unplugged

We map the city by its silences— where the old copper sleeps under sidewalks, where a telephone booth keeps a hollow weather. I touch the glass; it fogs with a name I never learned to dial.

At dusk, the streetlamps are patient vessels, pouring amber into the gutters. A moth writes its quick alphabet on the bulb, then vanishes into a pension of dark. The air smells of ozone and bread.

In the park, a fountain holds its breath. Coins glitter like unsent messages at the bottom, each face a small delay. Wind lifts a paper receipt, translating our transactions into birds.

Somewhere, a server farm hums with heat, a constellation grounded in a field. From my window I count the blinking edges and imagine the sky learning our passwords, then letting them go.