Salt Cartography

The tide leaves its atlas on the rocks, each pool a province of kelp and broken light, borders redrawn twice daily by a government of moon.

I kneel where the water was and read what it left behind— a crab shell thin as a fingernail, the blurred signature of foam, sand compacted into brief scripture.

My grandmother kept a jar of sea glass on her windowsill, each piece a word the ocean spent decades unwriting. She said the best stories are the ones worn smooth.

Now I collect what I can carry: the weight of salt on my lips, the sound of stones rearranging themselves beneath a wave's slow hand, this hour mapped in wet sand before the next translation.