Archaeology of a Summer Storm

We walk the beach after the thunder has folded, the sand still breathing, a low animal heat, and the tide rehearsing the names of lost boats.

Salt fog opens and closes like a slow eyelid, showing the ribs of the pier, black with rain, a gull standing on one leg, listening to iron.

I lift a shard of glass, a small blue window, turn it in my palm until it catches the sun; it answers with a brief, impossible sea.

You say the storm keeps a diary in the dunes, each line erased by wind before it dries; still, our footprints hold for a moment, dark.