Ethnographic imagination is both a mode of attention and a form of poesis. Drawing on phenomenology, literary theory, and examples from anthropology, we show how ethnographic insight takes shape both in what is said or observed and in what is absent or ambiguous. Gaps in narrative or experience invite imaginative engagement from both writer and reader. We examine fiction as an analytical method and an ethical choice, highlighting how ethnographic texts can evoke meaning through resonance rather than representation. At its best, the ethnographic imagination extends beyond the empirical to make space for possibility, uncertainty, and futures not yet fully realized.