Atlas of Quiet Things

The kettle cools into a small planet, its lid a moon that holds a thin breath. Steam remembers the shape of our hands, then chooses to forget it.

I map the house by the weight of rooms: a hallway light that leans against dusk, the worn stair keeping its count of feet, a window that keeps rehearsing rain.

In the drawer, paperclips graze like minnows, tiny metal commas in a slow sentence. A button sleeps in a thimble of dust, waiting for a coat that never returns.

Outside, the streetlamp lifts a pale sail. Night moves its dark cargo past the porch. I stand listening to the shy machinery of crickets and the far-off train.

When morning arrives, it comes quietly, like a letter slid beneath the door. I open it and hear the room exhale, an atlas of small, unclaimed continents.