The Cartographer's Last Survey

She mapped the river twice — once in the flood year, when it swallowed the willows whole, and once after, tracing its new mouth with a finger that remembered the old one.

The blue ink dried darker than the water it named. She liked that: how the symbol outlived the thing, patient as sediment.

At the edge of every survey she left a margin of white, not from error but from knowing that land keeps moving after you've gone home.

Her last map folds strange now — the crease cuts through a valley she swore was flat, the legend faded to a language only rain still reads.

What she charted was never the ground. It was the hour she stood there, shadow short, the wind undecided, and chose to believe the earth would hold still.