Tidepool Observatory

At low tide the rocks open their black cabinets, and each shallow bowl keeps a sky in miniature. Anemones breathe like careful hands unclosing, green fire braided through salt and glass.

I kneel where the ocean forgot its silver tools: a mussel shell, a feather spine of kelp, the moon's thin coin turning in a puddle, tiny crabs writing commas in the sand.

Wind passes over everything, tuning it. Water hums against stone in patient vowels. Even my shadow is borrowed, wavering, stitched to the bottom by drifting light.

When the tide returns, it erases without cruelty. What I cannot carry, it carries for me. By dusk the pools are sealed, dark mirrors again, holding the first star like a secret lamp.