Atlas of Quiet Machines

At the edge of the yard, the old windmill keeps its ribs of cedar turning in a language of creaks, counting the cold as if it were a flock of sheep, slowly returning to the barn of the sky.

Inside the shed, a bicycle sleeps on a nail, tires unspooling the memory of road dust, its bell a small bronze moon that once rang like a river at noon.

I sort the drawers of bolts and washers, metal constellations in their paper galaxies; each thread remembers a hand that tightened it, each head, a star with a dented halo.

Night drifts down like sawdust, fine and bright, and the machines stand still, listening for frost; somewhere a fox writes quick punctuation in snow, and the moon oils the hinges of the dark.