What the Salt Remembers

The tide pulls back like a sentence left unfinished — the beach exposes its dark interior, ribbed and gleaming, holding nothing that was asked of it.

A woman stands at the waterline with her shoes in her hand. She is thinking of her mother, or she is thinking of salt, which is the same thing now.

Somewhere beneath the surface a kelp forest sways in permanent slow motion, indifferent to what we carry to the edge and set down without ceremony.

The wave that reaches her feet was once rain over a city she'll never visit, was ice, was cloud, was the breath of someone breathing out for the last time.

She walks back up the sand. The wet hem of her dress dries stiff with minerals. She carries it all winter, the white residue of what the sea kept.