Burntisland

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,