At the Glass Tidal Farm

Before sunrise, the desalination panes hum blue. Salt sleeps in white drifts along the catwalk rails. Inside the tanks, seedlings lift their wet green wrists. A gull drags a silver note across the dark.

Workers arrive smelling of coffee and machine oil. Their boots ring hollow on grating above the sea. They open valves; the morning loosens like silk. Mist beads on their eyelashes, bright as solder.

By noon, tomatoes burn small suns in hanging vines. Water climbs through pipes with a patient animal pulse. Outside, waves keep breaking their old argument. Inside, each leaf answers in a softer language.

At dusk the windows turn to copper, then coal. Someone pockets one warm fruit for the ride home. Night shifts in, tidal and exact, without applause. The farm keeps making sweetness out of brine.