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 mapped-out water
can run beside
my own small channel,
each bend marked
in a hand I almost know.

Through the 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 maps,
where it can lean
against a memory
I have yet to
admit is mine.

Between first assent
and last,
a pressed leaf charts
streets I will've walked;
in hollow nooks
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 a shut
window is still
leave unlatched.

.