The Slow Unmaking

Rust is a slow fire, eating the hulls of forgotten trawlers. The air tastes of salt and iron, a heavy breath from the sleeping docks.

Barnacles map out new constellations on the underbelly of the tide. Chain links, thick as a man's wrist, surrender their shine to the silt.

Above, the cranes are skeletal fingers pointing at a sky gone gray. They hold the weight of what was built, and the silence of what was left behind.

Water laps against the rotting piers, a rhythmic heartbeat in the mud. Everything here is becoming something else, unmaking itself in the long afternoon.