What the Salt Never Wrote Down

Marfa split the season’s last catch with one clean stroke of the blade — no ledger opened, no fish counted, only the layers, and those unwritten.

Her granddaughter sorted the small ones by feel, unshown, unspoken, the whole shape of the lesson passed wrist to wrist, and left unwritten.

Down at the well two women traded which room the fire found first; a woman with salt under her nails kept the truer answer unwritten.

Someone starts a line for the thirtieth time this month and cannot finish it, calls it discretion, though we both know some mercies come only unwritten.

I have taught no one my red in nineteen years of mixing it alone — a girl wore it wrong at my table last week; I let the wrongness stay unwritten.

My own teacher tied a knot for me exactly once, and never again showed my hand how — I am only now grateful for a gift that arrives best unwritten.

The Bazaar empties its stalls of Ingathering silk while the drum-heat holds a little longer; somewhere a bolt is sold whose truest price was always unwritten.

Zara, let the vat keep its six days dark before you ask it anything — not every color that survives you was ever meant to be written.