Salt Cartography

The tide leaves its alphabet on stone, each letter dissolving before I can read the sentence it meant to complete.

I have walked this coast so many times the rocks know the weight of my particular silence, the way I stop where the jetty ends and let the wind finish my thoughts.

There was a house here once, my grandmother said, pointing at nothing but salt grass and the low hum of something forgotten. I believed her. The air tasted like rooms.

Now I come back with maps that show only what survives measurement — the depth of the channel, the height of the dune, never the places where someone stood still long enough to leave a warmth.

The tide returns, illiterate, faithful, writing its one word over and over on a shore that has never once refused the lesson.