Salt Flat at Noon

The lake left years ago, quietly, the way a thought dissolves mid-sentence— only its white residue remains, a skin of mineral and forgetting.

I walk where water used to hold the sky and the horizon repeats itself in every direction, patient, indifferent, a sentence with no punctuation.

My shadow is the only dark thing here. It stretches west, apologetic, unwilling to look back at the sun that has been asking it questions all morning.

There is a sound like silence becoming aware of itself. Somewhere a crow turns and the air closes around the absence of its wing.

I kneel and press my palm to the cracked earth— still warm, still holding, as if the ground remembers what it was like to be held.