Morning fog kisses verdigris coat
Quercus virginiana spreads shadow
Cars scream past on concrete throat
Brass remembers what soil knows
Seasons turn in salt corrosion
Time etches maps no door chose
I am brass key without a door
Guarding overpass and shore
Salt and wind my only key
Patient as taxonomy
Evening brings Spartina alterniflora
Tides rise under steel girder ribs
Oxidation writes its flora
On surfaces where nothing lives
No hand turns me no lock receives
Just gulls and wind and salt fibs
I am brass key without a door
Guarding overpass and shore
Salt and wind my only key
Patient as taxonomy
Winter strips the maritime forest bare
Pinus palustris stands sentinel tall
Brass endures the salt-laced air
No door answers patient call
Patina blooms like lichen slow
Green copper flowers on metal wall
I am brass key without a door
Guarding overpass and shore
Salt and wind my only key
Patient as taxonomy
Spring returns with Salicornia green
Glasswort carpets the tidal zone
Key keeps watch on the unseen
Guarding threshold not its own
Rebar bones in concrete skin
Rust and brass in saline zone
No lock exists no door was built
Only highway hum and tide
Key and overpass and silt
Patient watch on every side
Decades stack like sediment layers
Taxodium knees breach asphalt seams
Brass key guards what time alters
Patient witness to salt dreams
No door needed no key required
Just presence where the highway beams
I am brass key without a door
Guarding overpass and shore
Salt and wind my only key
Patient as taxonomy
Brass key without a door
Guarding overpass forevermore
Salt wind writes on brass skin
Patient metal holds within
