in scale

All day long the sea went back and forth, back and forth. At night the moon was as if suddenly clear of obstructions and showed huge and plain. There was no talking to the moon, and so we kept our heads down and argued among ourselves.

A kind of camp was established. Its fire burned all night, various hands tossing in pieces of driftwood, paper, cardboard packaging - whatever those hands found for the purpose. Some of us stayed by the fire, lounging, one's back against a log, another hunched over, face peering into the fire. His hands move busily but without any particular end. Nervous hands.

I got up and walked out toward the waves. I heard them before I saw them, trim little ridges of foam obliterating over the barren sands. Then I reached out and felt your fingertips touch mine, as if you had read my mind. I can't say I was pleased. I am impossible to know, I am sure. I am unlovely, untrue, and will live out an undiscovered life.

But still you find me.