What the Tide Leaves

The tide pulls back its long gray tongue and leaves behind whatever it has borrowed— a bottle green as old intentions, two mussel shells still hinged like a closed book.

My grandmother's hands moved like that: reaching, retreating, smoothing tablecloths that weren't there anymore, her fingers reading the grain of some other kitchen.

We call it loss but it is more like weather, the way a storm spends itself completely and the air after smells of minerals and distance, something opened in the world.

I keep going back to the water's edge not to find what's gone but to watch the next wave form itself from nothing— its whole life the shape of arriving.