Signal at Low Tide

At low tide the harbor exhales its ribs, kelp and rope and old iron breathing green, a small radio ticking in a shack of light where gulls step like unpunctuated sentences.

Fog walks in with a slow, careful name, pressing its thumbprint onto every pane; the lighthouse erases the horizon and redraws it as a thin chalk line the sea agrees to.

A fisherman mends his net in the doorway, the nylon shining like a wet constellation, and each knot is a syllable he doesn't say because the wind has already taken that job.

Far out, a buoy rocks its red eye awake, counting the waves as if they were hours; I pocket a pebble warmed by sun's brief visit and carry the tide's quiet refusal home.