Salt on the Observatory Stairs

At dawn the observatory tastes of salt, stairs sweating under my palms like living stone, the dome unbuttons to a pale, astonished sky, and gulls stitch white vowels through the wind.

Inside, the brass telescope keeps last night's breath, a cold circle where Saturn once leaned and vanished. Dust rises when I turn the wheel, a small galaxy startled from sleep.

Below the cliff, the tide drags chains of light across black water, link by bright link. Each wave erases and rewrites the shore, as if the earth were practicing my name.

I leave before noon, pockets full of rust and morning. Behind me, the dome closes like an eyelid. Still, all day, my chest keeps turning toward that high room where darkness learned to sing.