The Salt Flats at Dusk

The horizon here is a rumor the sky tells itself, thin as a blade, white as quarried silence. A crane picks through the shallow brine and leaves no shadow worth keeping.

Miles of skin stretched over nothing— the earth has given up pretending. Even the wind arrives apologetically, shifting the crust with the patience of erosion.

I walked out until the car became a smudge, until my own footprints embarrassed me with how small a life takes up. The sun lay down without ceremony.

Then the salt did what salt does: held the last light past all reason, glowing faintly, the way a stone remembers warmth long after dark.