Cartography of a Kettle

The kettle wakes with a throat of tin, a small storm turning on the stove. Steam gathers like letters from an old address, and the kitchen window softens to watercolor.

On the counter, a lemon half moons its own light; the knife rests, silver as a sleep token. I listen to the simmer, a map of tiny borders, each bubble a country rising, then erasing.

Outside, the neighbor's roof glints, a slow animal. A sparrow lifts a crumb, slips between cables, and the day starts to hum beneath the door, its chord of buses and faraway metal.

I pour and the cup fills with a pale sun. Heat holds my hands as if it remembers them. In the mirror of the tea, my face is a passing boat, quietly traveling toward a place it already knows.