The Cartographer of Small Hours

She maps the hours no one names— the one when the radiator ticks itself to sleep, the one when a dog barks three streets over and is answered.

Her instruments are a teacup going cold, the particular blue of the window before any color has decided what it is.

She marks where the mind doubles back on itself, a river forgetting its mouth, and the silence that arrives between two thoughts like a guest who has misread the invitation.

On her charts, the borders shift. The hour before grief looks exactly like the hour before joy— she has learned not to label them.

By morning the maps are useless. She folds them anyway, places them in the drawer with all the other true things she has no use for in daylight.