A POEM
If the sea rakes and scrapes it
long enough
it may crack
revealing beneath
its inscrutable surface
ammonite, frond, shell
residue of process
and what it seems to hold
balanced and weighed
and sent with a flick to skim
like a real stone
the surface of meaning
—Alan Baker
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(A version of this poem was published in Poetry Nottingham and in the pamphlet 'Not Bondi Beach')