What the Cartographer Left Out

The old map had no word for the fog that lived at the edge of the inlet, the way it arrived each morning like a thought you almost finished.

She drew the roads in ink so fine the pen could have been a hair from her own head, every junction named for someone who had already stopped answering letters.

Between the contour lines she left white space — not because she didn't know, but because some elevations refuse to hold still for numbers.

I have been folding this map along its original creases for years, trying to find the town where the grief goes when it quiets.

The corners are soft now, nearly transparent. Underneath, the table shows through — its own grain of ridges and rivers, equally uncharted.