What the Salt Remembers

The tide comes in the same way every morning— indifferent, white-foamed, dragging the small stones back into itself.

My grandmother kept a jar of salt on the windowsill above the sink. She never said where it came from. I never asked until it was too late.

Now I stand at the edge of something cold and watch the water flatten the sand into a surface clean enough to write on, which the next wave erases before I find the words.

Some losses don't announce themselves. They settle slowly, like sediment— the way a room empties not when someone leaves but when you finally stop listening for them.

The jar is still there, on my sill now. In afternoon light it holds a thin line of amber at the bottom— I don't know what it means. I don't rinse it out.