The Salt Keeper

She kept the salt in a clay jar the color of winter sky, and every morning measured out what the tide had left behind.

Her hands knew the weight of it— not sorrow exactly, more the way a word you've said too often loses the shape of what it meant.

The sea is not a metaphor. It moves. It takes. It lays things down on shore and calls that gift.

We buried nothing. There was no ceremony, only the jar still on the sill, its lid ajar, the light going in.

Now her daughter measures salt with the same unconscious tilt of wrist, not knowing what she carries, only that it's right.