Leaving the Island by Elizabeth Austen

Mist-colored knots of sea glass. A moss-clot cadged from the trail’s edge. The truce fished word by word from beneath the surface, still unspoken. We carry what we found what we made there. Three days you and I let the currents direct our course, slept on cool sand, let woodsmoke flavor us.

What’s left? Slow travel over cold water. Toward home and days ordered by clocks instead of tides. We watch through salt-scarred windows, hoping the dark shapes will rise beside us, will grace us. We know too well what can’t be willed, only missed if we look away too soon.