[Issue 2026.76]

“Salt as a Second Language”, Abigail Dereje

Art © 2026 Sebastian Timpe

I have stood at your edge,
and mistaken you for peace.

A wave rises, translucent and green,
its crest lit lustrous.

Your current cradles my knees,
folding me
into your green-blue spine
into the grammar of you
cold
into my palms.

I watched you inhale a pier,
one plank at a time,
the slow erasure of a sentence.
Watched you suck the sand out
from under a man’s standing body
from under the ribs of an oarfish.

Foam threads my toes,
catching the morning silver,
threading the seams of denim,
translating me
into the rhythm
of you.

And I feel the pull—

Somewhere below it all,
something keeps calling,
something keeps turning,
waiting,
for what falls in.

© 2026 Abigail Dereje

[Issue 2026.76]

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