The Cartographer's Insomnia

At three in the morning she unrolls the old maps, flattens the coastlines with her palms, traces the fjords with a finger that still trembles from some dream she won't name.

Every shoreline is a question she asked once and answered badly. The inlets bend toward each other like sentences left unfinished at the dinner table.

She marks the places she misread: here, where the river doubles back on itself and she thought it was indecision — it was only thirst, finding another way.

There are towns labeled only with their altitude, as if height were enough to explain why people stayed, why they built their chimneys into the prevailing wind.

By morning she has folded everything back. The coast returns to its imprecision. She drinks her coffee looking out at the yard, where the light arrives without a legend.