The Receding Shore

The salt-crusted pilings stand bare, skeletons of a season that retreated with the heat. White chairs on the porch face an empty stage, waiting for the fog to pull its curtain.

Sand drifts against the weathered doors, a slow tide of silica reclaiming the wood. The carousel is a ghost of mechanical birds, locked in a circle of frozen song.

A single gull hangs on a wire of wind, eyes bright with the cold logic of survival. The lighthouse pulse is a slow, red heartbeat mapping the limits of the darkening sea.