River stage

Humidity lengthens a trace. Wind steals the return. Name both.

Malik reads the Brazos the way a clerk reads a rise. A map that ignored the stage is just brass polish.

When the river is up, morning grain holds and short traces get even shorter. When the river is down and the south wind runs, long traces wander. We keep a stage note on every plot so a June recheck is not a fight about memory.

If you refuse to name a stage, Joss marks the plot "costume" and we stop.