Undertow

The kitchen holds its breath at dawn, steam rising from the kettle like a question nobody asks anymore. You trace the edge of yesterday's newspaper, your thumb worn smooth by small gestures.

Light arrives in pieces through the window— not all at once, but gradual, the way understanding comes too late. A sparrow lands on the fence, its shadow briefer than the thought it takes to see it.

The house remembers everyone it sheltered, walls thick with conversations we never finished, doors that held us the way skin holds morning cold. You don't turn around.

Some things live in the space between heartbeats, in the pause before you answer, in the quiet where forgetting finally meets what was. The steam keeps rising.