Salt Covenant

The tide pulls its white linens back and underneath, the sand holds every footprint like a promise it knows it cannot keep.

We walked here once with pockets full of shells still warm from sun, pressing them to our ears as if the ocean owed us answers, as if listening were enough.

Now the water trades its salt for the rust along the pier, and the wood remembers weight the way a table remembers the exact pressure of elbows, of grief.

I have learned that disappearing is its own form of devotion— the way fog gives itself entirely to a coastline, then lifts, leaving everything glistening and unnamed.