Saltworks at Midnight

At midnight the intake pipes begin their low hymn, black water climbing the concrete throat, a moon shivered into a thousand steel scales, gulls sleeping like folded knives on the pilings.

Inside, the membranes glow pale as lungs, pressure blooms through valves and braided veins; the sea gives up its bitterness grain by grain, and every gauge needle leans toward morning.

I walk the catwalk tasting iron in the mist, thinking of inland kitchens, chipped blue cups, children turning taps like opening small windows, old hands rinsing rice, kettles beginning to speak.

By dawn the brine goes back heavier with memory, the fresh line runs clear as first forgiveness. Above the tanks, light unwraps the horizon, and thirst, for a moment, has no name.