In the Orchard of Tides

At dawn the shoreline opens like a ledger, inked in foam, each wave a quiet clause. Salt lifts the trunks of the cypresses, and gulls turn pages with their white wings.

I walk the driftwood aisles, counting fruit that never ripens—green glass, a shard of bottle, sea grapes knotted in rope, a brass key with the teeth of a small, forgotten house.

The tide writes and erases, writes again, a patient scribe with a wet palm. I hear my mother in the low hiss, steam from her kettle, a window breathing.

By noon the light is a clear instrument held to the ear of the bay. I press my own name to the water and watch it blur into the chorus.