Salt Diary

The tide keeps a journal in kelp and broken glass, each entry erased before the next one lands. I found a page once — green, translucent, humming with the frequency of things almost said.

My grandmother dried fish on wire racks and never called it patience. The wind did half the work, she told me, the salt did the rest, and both of them were free.

There is a country between the wave and the sand it has not yet touched — a whole republic of almost, governed by surface tension and the slant of afternoon light.

I have been taking notes in water, pressing my sentences into the shallows where they curl, dissolve, and return as someone else's questions about the rain.