Cartography of the Night Orchard

I walked the orchard after midnight, when the trees were black ladders to nowhere, and the apples held their breath like small moons. Owls stitched the air with slow, invisible thread.

Beneath each root, a map of water whispered, springs making their soft arithmetic in the dark. I touched the bark; it remembered storms, kept the salt of old rain in its quiet grain.

Somewhere a fox unlatched the field, its red body a match struck and unstruck. The grass lifted and settled, learning the wind, and I carried the hush like a lantern inside my ribs.

By dawn the fruit had lowered their faces, light rinsing them with a pale, patient gold. I left without taking anything, except the way the night folded itself into bloom.