Cartography of the Thaw

In the last lake's breath, a map unthreads— ice loosens its vowels into glass. The shore relearns its own handwriting, wet cursive, a patient blue.

I walk the seam where winter stored its tools: rusted nails of frost, a pale saw of wind. Under each stone a small heat wakes, like a pocketed seed humming itself open.

Cranes pass over in slow stitched angles, their shadows spill a moving geometry. They measure nothing, only sing distance, a soft yardstick laid across the fields.

Evening arrives with its amber ledger; the river tallies the day in light. I stand in the margins, nameless and warm, and let the new water rewrite me.