Cartographer of a Glass Lake

The lake freezes into a map of breath, a pale atlas where the reeds are ink strokes and every crack is a border negotiating light. I walk its white margins, listening for the legend of what we used to know.

Under the ice, fish move like commas, pauses in a sentence the water forgot to finish. My boots drum a grammar of distances, each step a syllable in the cold that tries to pronounce my name.

On the far shore, a chapel of pines rings no bells, only snow falling through branches, soft as ash from a slow, patient fire. I think of hands once warmed by cups, of the steam that rose and disappeared.

Night comes early, folding the map shut. Stars pin the dark to the lake’s thin skin, and the moon, a coin set on a lid, buys silence from the wind, buys time to turn back unbroken.