Inventory of the Tide Pool Observatory

At dawn the tide pool opens like a pocket watch, anemones lift their soft green numerals, and a crab, lacquered in rust, ticks sideways through light poured thin as tea.

I kneel with a notebook the color of wet stone, counting small planets of snail shell and mica. Above me, gulls stitch white thread through fog, sewing the sea back to the sky.

Each wave edits the margin, then starts again; salt writes in cursive on my wrists. Kelp bells ring where no tower stands, and minnows flash like struck silver.

By noon the water closes its bright machine. What I can keep fits under one thumbnail: the smell of iron, the grammar of foam, and time walking sideways into blue.