Archive of Wind

At the edge of the salt flats, the wind keeps a ledger, inkless lines in the dust, a script of swirls and erasures. The sun lifts and tilts, a brass plate warming the page.

A coyote crosses, quick as a thought of leaving, leaves no footprint, only a faint change in the quiet. Somewhere a fence hums, a wire translating air into tone.

I kneel and press my palm to the ground like a reader, feel the cool beneath the crust, the old water asleep. In that stillness, a whole season turns a slow key.

By dusk, the horizon loosens, a seam unstitched, and the sky pours out its long, pale threads of blue. I walk home with the wind, carrying its blank pages.