Looking Forward

In the upper case,
a volume the colour of
late‑harvest light,
its spine breathing
salt and iron.

I keep it ajar —
not for dust,
but so the mapped water
can run beside
my own small channel,
each bend marked
in a hand I almost know.

Through its plaster,
a swell of brass‑warm air —
someone’s breath
caught in a long note,
turning the parlour
to water.

I do not rise,
only let the sound
find its own shelf
between the maps,
where it can lean
against a memory
I have not yet
admitted is mine.

Between the first assent
and the last,
a pressed leaf holds
streets I never walked;
in the hollow
where a page was long gone,
I’ve set a three‑part hinge:
motion, tether,
threshold.

It waits there,
not as ornament,
but as one more
voice in the palimpsest —
leaning into
the window I still
leave unlatched.

.