Cartography of the Kitchen at Midnight

The sink is a small harbor, lit by the moon’s spoon. Steam climbs the tiles in slow handwriting. A kettle clicks like a patient metronome and the table keeps its quiet gravity.

I draw a map from crumbs and salt, continents of bread, oceans of tea. The knife rests, a crescent of unsaid things, its metal remembering the weight of apples.

Outside, the street is a dark canal; a lone bicycle drifts past, unmoored. In the window’s gloss my face appears, an island, a lantern, a weathered shore.

I rinse the day from my hands and watch it spiral. Water circles, then forgets its name. Somewhere a radiator hums a low hymn, and the kitchen folds its wings, and sleeps.