What the Salt Remembers

The tide pulls back like a held breath, leaving the shore scraped clean, a wet slate written on by no one.

A child's castle has dissolved into the same grain it came from— the sand does not mourn the shape it held.

Somewhere a bottle carries a letter nobody wrote, sealed against a sea that will unseal everything in time.

The light on the water is not the same light that crossed the water an hour ago. Even the reflection has no fixed address.

We call it beautiful because it leaves. Because the salt in our blood knows where it learned to ache.