In the morning, before the beach,
there was the multi-coloured shop.
Hanging with red buckets and shovels,
swirling beach-balls and straw hats.
The air thick with warm plastic
and our ferocious swords of rock.
On a glass counter,
shell-encrusted jewellery boxes
gaped like hungry mouths
at unsuspecting day-trippers.
Then, all down
the afternoon`s long shadows,
we scattered seagulls,
built our harbours
on unsteady sand.
And the North Sea
brought clinging seaweed
and a hint of Norway.
Until the sky grew stalactites,
and you said the kelpie
who lived under the pier
only hunted at night.
But I never saw him.
Now, as a merciless wind
blows your name across the dunes,
somewhere buried deep
in this bone-ridden ground
are the choices we never knew.
Slowly taken root
and stiffened to history,
