Salt Atlas

At low tide the harbor shows its wiring, ropes dark as wet lungs, pylons furred with rust; a crane swings slowly like a metronome for ships already gone beyond the fog.

A gull peels open the morning with one cry. Wind salts the windows of the ticket booth, and in the glass my face appears in layers, as if the sea kept every version of my name.

Rail tracks behind the docks hold last night’s rain, thin mirrors cut between weeds and gravel. A freight car waits with its door half-lifted, breathing tar, oranges, engine heat.

When the siren sounds, the whole pier listens. Even the bolts seem to brighten for a second. I walk inland carrying that iron music, a tide-line of brine drying white on my sleeves.