Atlas of Quiet Sparks

In the afternoon the power blinks, a small thunder inside the wall, and the house exhales a thin, copper breath.

I walk the rooms like a careful comet, collecting tiny flares of ordinary: the kettle's hiss, a spoon's lunar gleam, dust drifting in a beam like slow snow.

Outside, the streetlamp rehearses evening, testing its throat against the dusk; a moth circles, a paper satellite, its wings mapped in chalky gold.

When the current returns it is soft, a river threading through hidden veins, and I keep the dark in my pocket, warm as a coal, humming its private name.