The Cartographer of Sleep

In the attic of the night, a desk lamp floats, its cone of light an island where the pencils wake. I draw the coastlines of my own forgetting, ink like tidewater, blue and unhurried.

A river loops through orchards of unpicked words, each fruit a mouth that almost speaks my name. Fog takes notes at the bridge, silver and quiet, and the railing hums with the weight of years.

Mountains rise as folded sheets, creasing the dark; between their ridges, a train of sleeping animals moves by breath and bell, carrying weather from one room to the next.

Before morning, I chart the soft border where my mother’s laugh ends and the city begins, then roll the map and place it in a drawer that opens only when I wake.