Desalination Nocturne

The plant hums like a distant hive, sleepless, its ribs of pipework sweating salt and moon. Outside, the bay holds its dark breath, a slick of mercury that remembers storms.

Inside the membranes, the ocean is sifted thread by thread, a slow unbraiding of brine; every drop is a rescued seed of light, a quiet pulse pulled from the throat of waves.

The gauges glow, small constellations mapped for the night shift’s lone astronomer. He listens to motors and the tide’s bassline, counts the seconds in the language of valves.

At dawn, the first cup lifted to the mouth is not water but a whole weather made gentle, the taste of currents turned to mercy, a new river beginning in the palms.