Clockmakers of the Tide

At low tide the harbor exposes its ribs, wet timber freckled with barnacle stars, and the gulls rehearse their silver verbs as if the wind were a page they could turn.

A clockmaker in a shed of salt and copper oils the teeth of a tide-clock, patient, listening to the slow percussion of kelp, each click a stitch in the sea's old coat.

He measures time by what returns: anchors bloom with rope, bottles with light, the scent of iron after rain, the small warmth of a hand on a chisel.

At dusk the water climbs back into its skin, erasing his footprints with a fluent tongue, and the clock keeps breathing in the dark, a chest of gears dreaming of moonrise.