The Cartographer of Small Hours

At three a.m. the kitchen becomes a country no atlas claims — the kettle's slow vowel, a moth pressing its alphabet to the bulb, the refrigerator humming its one long psalm to nobody in particular.

I draw the borders with a teaspoon. Here, the province of unanswered letters. Here, the lake where my mother's voice still floats, untranslated. The map is wet wherever I touch it.

Outside, the street is a held breath. A fox crosses it like a rumor, quick orange punctuation between sentences no one has finished writing. Even the streetlamp leans in to listen.

I have learned to be the small weather of my own house — the wind in the hallway, the late thaw under the door. Some nights I am almost the rain I keep mistaking for company.

By dawn the country folds itself away, grows shy at the first blue. The kettle cools. The moth gives up its sermon. I carry the map in my coat pocket and walk out into the loud, forgetful world.