Wind Farm Nocturne

At midnight the desalination plant hums like a cathedral of kettles. Intake pipes draw the dark sea inward, a thousand throats of iron. Moonlight ladders on the tanks, broken and remade by spray. Salt rides the air, bright as ground glass on my tongue.

Inside, membranes thin as breath divide thirst from abundance. Pressure shoves the ocean through a silence no fish can enter. Brine returns to the breakers, heavier, remembering storms. Freshwater gathers in steel lungs, cool and almost shy.

I walk the catwalks with a wrench and a thermos of fennel tea. Gauges bloom green, then amber, then green again like patient stars. Beyond the fence, the town sleeps with its faucets closed. Dreams stack in apartments, waiting for morning hands.

Before dawn, gulls stitch white calls across the harbor cranes. The east opens, copper and peach, over rows of humming pumps. I sign my name on the logbook and feel the paper soften. Day pours from every tap as if it had never been sea.