The Glass House of Morning

The sun arrives as a splinter of ice, tapping against the pane of the world, waking the dust motes from their slow descent.

Shadows stretch like ink spilled on linen, reaching for the corners where sleep still hides, cold and grey as a stone at the bottom of a lake.

We move through the silence of the kitchen, the kettle’s whistle a sharp needle stitching together the fragments of the day.

Everything is brittle before the heat begins, a landscape of crystal and breath, waiting for the first heavy step of noon.