Salt Dialogue

The tide keeps no minutes, only the slow argument of salt against the ankles of the pier.

I watched a woman once fold the sea into a glass jar, hold it to the light as if checking for bones, then pour it back without a word.

What the water takes it renames— driftwood becomes a country, a bottle becomes a year someone forgot to open.

Even the rocks learn patience here, their sharp opinions worn to the smooth grammar of sand, each grain a sentence finished.

Tonight the moon lays down its one white page on the surface, and the waves keep turning it, reading both sides at once.