The Man on the Beach

He’d a certain elegance, deliberate, yet fluid, like Quicksilver, and enough

small intrigue to persuade me to blink

him into relief against the curl of breaker-fall,

past the cusp, to crash and sprawl;

she was Grace distant from both man and

‘Every day’, moving neither to nor from and what little sound their presence made, was

taken to flight and thence to lay upon the sand;

leaving them in mime, fused in time,

by camera blink, each moment caught, a hand waving through the absence they shared, where only the sea was at play, all rough and tumble, all waves and spray;

they were two jigsaws, broken, who tumbled from the sky, in the mire below to lie, but who made a picture, new, whole but not complete,

disagreement was apparent as they moved, like ritual, like tango, like chess, round and round,

glances and glares drawn from the sharp breath

of the tide, then slowly put aside,

and softened, as if each were a mirror in which the other was seen, reminding them

where their answers can be found, amidst

their wants, their needs and the futures they

hoped to fill.

the greyscale land cut to black & white, leaving only

the slight bleed and blur of absolutes:

he sauntered, Bowler & Brolly, along the concrete Jetty, shoes sodden, from errant wave and eccentricity, aware of her stare, as she appeared to move with him but not;

Love is how they make you feel, not what you say,

or they say, words like ‘because’ do not lead to truths,

any more than mirrors.

and in the quiet slowing of our autumn, we shed piece by piece all we thought was of value until our final hour, when we realise there is only love, that has worth, and that is all.