Tide of Quiet Rooms

In the museum of late winter, glass breathes slow, windows hold the sky like a sheet of pale metal, and a lone radiator clicks—small teeth of heat counting the minutes it takes to thaw a hallway.

I walk the corridor of rooms no one lives in, each door a hinge of light, each knob a planet; the dust is soft as moth wings, still arranged where footsteps used to move like tidewater.

Somewhere a plant remembers rain by scent, bending toward a faucet that never drips; the leaves are green phrases paused mid‑sentence, their silence a rhythm that keeps time anyway.

Outside, the street runs dark with melted snow, cars make brief meteors of their taillights; I carry the house back in my chest, a blueprint of warmth folded into my coat.