Cartography of the Quiet

In the salt-flat night, the radio dishes sleep like white flowers turned toward a dark sun. Wind combs the gravel, a soft static of bones, and the sky is a ledger written in slow fire.

I walk the service road with a pocket of screws, each one a small planet I cannot name. The control room breathes, a low, oceanic hum, maps unfolding where no light has ever gone.

Somewhere, an old star clears its throat and fades. We listen, not for answers, but for the shape of absence. Even the coyotes pause, ears tilted to the quiet, as if the universe might finally say our names.