Then you read what you wrote and try

to find some shape. Try it on for size. Write in personality. This is the crafting?

The wind-tossed dune beach is dry and the seagulls have turned into albatrosses across the stony ground. But up close they still scavange for food in the the discarded cans and cups and shrouded paper bags and pink plastic strings and pick on open eyed insects breaking into view. Looking hard, they peck at the insects, sending them scurrying. We carefully laugh at the seabirds trying to keep ourselves decorous in front of each other.

The breakwater on which we sit is worn . The slime from the algae ushers in the waves that ride relentless on its rock surface. Here, there is no respite from the unforgiving sun and the flat rocks reflect the heat like a glass. Made from the ocean's spray, chiselled by the forces of god, the rock surfaces stall the inevitable eroding when water meets land.

I try to keep you amused by claiming that it takes skill in choosing rocks flat enough to skim.

"They skim well even on the waves."

The row of people diminishes when I try to picture you. I find mirrored in my mind the tension of sky sand and the expanse that consumes words. You've moved apart, an image white sheeted on the bleached sand. Even skimming rocks on the surface of the sea is a foiled attempt at attention for they sink faster than they skip.

And so I try to make sense of each skimming now sinking rock. I tell myself that they speak of a lost moment that once launched, tries for words becoming almost meaningful. But unlike rocks, these words thrown out in the breeze will not sink. They catch the wind like flaunted flags strung out in embarrassing silence.

"Look here, this one skips."

Your grin almost becomes a smile but I never get to see it.

Held out in the sun, words lose they fluidity becoming baked, like mud accumulating at the foot of the breakwater. When the tide is low, the slime hardens, thickens and sets. The glances of emotion become fossilised and there is no longer the ambiguity of misread signals.

But by the sea every slight gesture and utterance is a moment not yet set. Before you turn around, before you exchange your grin for a smile, before the hours lengthen into days: by the sea, I imagine rocks skim the surf.