A Mark From Either Side

Mara keeps the notebook under her coat.
Jon wipes his pencil on his sleeve.
The wall shines between them.

“You start there,” he says.
“You start there.”
She gives him the tape.
He gives her his.
They bend to the marks.

All afternoon the water rises:
the blue two disappears,
then the nail,
then the ledge where a child
once stood to watch.

Mara shuts the notebook against the wind.
Jon holds his page open with one thumb.

At ebb they return to the wall.
A pale line runs above the nail,
thinning where the mortar falls away.

Jon rubs the pale line with his thumb.
Salt powders his skin.
Mara takes the tape from him
and holds the end steady
while he writes.