Cartography of a Borrowed Kitchen

The faucet keeps a private weather, dripping past midnight in a code I have not learned to translate— each note a small coin dropped into the throat of the drain.

Someone else taped the calendar to the fridge, circled a Thursday in red that already came and went. I eat my apple over the sink the way a guest learns the verbs of a house.

The cupboard hinges complain in two different languages, and the kettle, when it boils, remembers a woman who is not me, who is not here.

Tonight I rearrange the spoons until they nest like vowels, until the kitchen forgets its first owner and the dripping faucet sounds, almost, like applause.