Cartography of Rust

At the shipyard of sleep, I unroll a map of iron, creases like riverbeds, stains like old tea. The compass is a nail, its point tasting the air, and the coastline hums with engines that forgot their names.

I walk the grid where bolts once held a sky, touching rivet-heads that bloom into small suns. Each metal plate remembers a footstep, each joint a hinge for weather and its slow applause.

A wind arrives, carrying filings, a thin metallic snow. It settles in my hair, in my throat, in the white of my eye. I swallow the grit of distances, unmarked roads, and my tongue learns the dialect of oxidized rain.

When I fold the map, the rust folds back, and the shipyard rises, a cathedral of scaffolds. Somewhere a whistle opens like a bird, and the day begins, red with the effort of turning.