The silence after the last train

It’s 1:32 a.m. and the tracks behind my old flat are empty, but I can still hear the ghost of the 1:17 from the west — not the sound, exactly, but the way the air holds its breath after it passes. Salt on my lips again, though I haven’t been near the sea in weeks. Funny how the mind remembers the weight of a port more than the people who worked it. Sometimes I think the real cargo isn’t what ships carry, but the quiet they leave behind.