At the Tide Gauge of Night

In the old weather station, ferns inherit the instruments. Rain taps Morse code on the copper roof. A barometer sleeps with its glass eye open, watching clouds kneel to read their own weight.

At dusk, the anemometer cups gather wind like spilled grain. Swallows stitch low arcs through salt air. Someone left a mug ring on the chart table, a pale moon that never learned to move.

I turn the crank of the tide gauge; ink wakes and shivers. The sea answers in long blue syllables. Each rise a breath pulled through reed and rust, each fall a door closing softly in another language.

By midnight the station hums like a shell at the ear. Stars queue above the jetty, patient as lit windows. I write tomorrow in graphite beside the numbers, and morning arrives already damp with listening.