you are the sunrise
on the beach
and every moment after

a low vibration across the tide
a seam of faint amber
torn along the dark lip
of the horizon
slowly bleeding
peach and crushed salt
into the cold gray

the water catches you first
rippling in thin
liquid sheets of gold
that wash over my feet
warm before the air
even remembers how to be warm
the sky unspools itself above us
stretching from violet
into a vast
breathless blue

and then the sun
clears the water
full and unshielded
and the world begins to move

you are the first light
but you are also
the quiet heat that follows
the sand growing warm
between my toes by noon
the steady midday glare
on the deep water
the long amber shadows
stretching across
the dunes at dusk
and the soft lingering tide
that hums in the dark
long after the sun goes down

I do not just watch you arrive
you leave something
of yourself in the world
and somehow
I am where it remains