The Receding Tide

The salt-crust hardens on the cedar's spine, where the tide has unwritten the reach of the dunes. Grain by grain, the coastline folds inward, a slow collapse into the grey-green heave.

Once, there was a path of crushed shells, whiter than the moon at mid-afternoon. Now the kelp tangles in the ghost-roots, and the gulls scream at the vacancy where the porch once held the light.

Time is a solvent here, rinsing the rust from the iron bolts of a vanished pier. We watch from the cliff’s receding lip, measuring the distance between the spray and the names we used to call the wind.

The water doesn't remember the house, only the weight of its own rhythm, the tireless grinding of stone into silt, until the edge is a circle and the land is a dream of the deep.