What the Salt Remembers

The tide pulls back like a held breath, leaving the shore exposed— ribbed sand, a few stones still warm from the afternoon.

My grandmother kept salt in a jar by the stove, never explaining why. Some things are carried forward not for use but for the weight of them, the familiar pressure in the hand.

The ocean knows every name it has swallowed: sailor, swimmer, the child's red shoe, the century of ships. It does not mourn. It only moves.

I have stood at the edge of grief the way you stand at the edge of water— feeling the cold arrive before it arrives, the sand shifting under your feet toward something you cannot stop.

What remains after the wave recedes is not the same shore. Only the salt knows this. Only the salt keeps saying so.