What the Salt Remembers

The tide arrives with no intention, dragging its grey hem across the sand, leaving nothing it meant to leave.

My grandmother kept a jar of sea glass on the sill where light came through like a slow burn— each piece tumbled into something bearable, its edges worn to silence.

I used to think forgetting was the wound. Now I think it is the body's mercy: the way the salt forgets the wound it cleaned, how the glass forgets the shore that broke it.

There is a color between green and water that has no name in any language I know. She called it the color of almost. I have been almost for a long time.

The jar is mine now, on a different sill. The light comes through the same.