Cartography of the Tide Pool

At dawn the tide pool opens like an eye ringed with mica and drifted kelp. I kneel to its salt-thick alphabet, small syllables of foam and darting fins.

A crab writes sideways across the sand, its script erased, rewritten by the next wave. I map its brief geometry with a fingertip, a map for a coast that keeps changing names.

In the water, the sky stutters in shards, clouds broken into glass and mending. A gull lifts, and the pool lifts with it, a mirror learning how to let go.

When the sun climbs, the pool shrinks to a coin, bright enough to spend on a single wish. I carry the wet map in my palm until it dries, and disappears into salt.