Cartography of Salt

The river remembers nothing of its source — only the direction of falling, the grammar of stones it has learned to speak around.

My grandmother kept a jar of soil from the yard she left without looking back. By the time I knew to ask, she had forgotten which country it was from.

There are maps that show only coastline, the edges where something ends or begins, depending on which way you're walking. The interior left white, unnamed, waiting for someone to be lost in it.

I have carried her name in my mouth like a coin I couldn't spend — the syllables worn smooth from turning, still tasting faintly of somewhere I have never been.

Salt is what remains after the water goes. After fire. After the long patience of wind against a face. We call it preservation, this habit of what endures — as if staying is the same as being kept.