What the Tide Remembers

The tide pulls back like a hand withdrawing from an old argument, leaving the sand dark and speechless.

Somewhere a child's bucket holds its shape in the wet ground long after the child is gone— a mold of wanting, filling slowly with sky.

The kelp drags its long green sentences across stone, writing nothing anyone will read, leaving its signature in brine and cold.

Even the cliffs lean in to hear what the water is saying. They have been listening for centuries and have not yet learned to answer.

What the tide remembers, it returns— a bottle, a hinge, a name worn smooth until it could belong to anyone, to no one, to the sea.