Cartography of Static

In the radio shop at dawn, the shutters breathe, antennae comb the fog for orphaned weather. Each dial is a small moon, turning, turning, seeking a voice that has not yet been born.

I map the city by its hum: elevators exhaling, the river’s wire, trolleys scratching sparks into the wet air, a bakery’s oven keeping time with the blocks.

A storm passes, thin as carbon paper. On the windows, raindrops translate the sky into a language of taps and vanishing, and the streetlights answer in amber Morse.

When night settles, the cables cool, and my hands are full of invisible maps. I fold them into a coat pocket of silence, walk home, listening for the next station.