The Cartographer's Daughter

She inherited his hands — wide palms that knew the heft of paper, the particular patience of coastlines.

He had mapped places she would never see, drawn rivers in a language of contour until the rivers believed themselves.

She traces the latitude of his last unfinished work, a peninsula left unnamed, reaching into a sea he called only blue.

Some places resist being found. She understands this now — how he charted distance as a form of tenderness.

She folds the map along its oldest crease. Outside, the city spills past its edges the way water always exceeds its name.