Atlas of Quiet Hours

In the derelict observatory, dust is a slow snowfall, settling on the brass of a telescope that once held morning. A moth burns its small orbit against the glass, and the dome remembers the last blue it opened to.

I keep my ear to the floorboards of the night, listening for the city's groundwater, for trains in their tunnels. Each sound is a fish in a dark river, slipping past the beams of a flashlight's thought.

On the desk, a logbook blooms with empty dates, pages thin as the skin of onions, translucent with waiting. I write down the hours like constellations, then erase them, to let the dark remain complete.

Outside, a rain begins that knows the names of streets, and in it the leaves turn their faces as if to learn. Somewhere, a window opens and a piano tries a chord, and the building exhales a long, relieved breath.