Cartography of Salt

The tide has memorized every shore it has abandoned. It pulls back without apology, leaving its calligraphy in foam.

My grandmother kept a jar of sea glass on the sill where light came slow and green. Each piece she said was something swallowed whole then given back, worn soft.

I have been mapping the places I cannot return to— not on paper, but in the body, the way the chest knows a longitude it cannot name.

The ocean does not mourn its own erosion. It simply arrives again, carrying what it found on the way, depositing it lightly at your feet.

We call it loss. The water calls it nothing. It just moves toward whatever shore is next and learns its shape by heart.