Cartography of Moths

We unfolded the attic like a map of weather, cedar breath and the small pulsing of old glass, and a lamp kept a warm longitude on the table where dust drifted in slow, deliberate vowels.

A moth landed on my wrist, a paper compass, its wings inked with the grammar of lanterns; it charted the air between us, a thin passage where your name moved like a tide through the rafters.

Outside, the street hummed, a low machinery of rain, but inside the light was a patient harbor; we watched the moths take up their quiet mariners’ work, stitched to the lamp by threads of temporary gold.

By morning the lamp cooled and the map went dark, yet the air still held its faint, luminous routes; I kept them in my coat like folded letters, creases of night I could open with my hands.