Atlas of Wind-Born Things

The morning opens like a crate of glass, streets full of pale receipts of rain, each puddle a small country you can step over. A gull scribbles a white arc, and the harbor tastes of cold metal.

I carry a map that refuses borders, only soft directions—north of thyme, west of the orchard where the bells go quiet. The wind folds it, refolds it, teaching me how to be a crease.

In a museum of small currents, there is a drawer for every weathered word: salt, ember, lichen, breath. I run my thumb along their edges, and they warm as if they remember hands.

By dusk the city is an instrument, alleys strung with low, amber notes. I leave a coin in the fountain's throat, and listen for the answer, a ripple that sounds like my name.