The cottage table is a dry island. You lay out the night like a person dealing cards.

Lights: buoy, town, lens, looming. Sounds: wind-vowel, cliff-echo, grate, seal, skip that said kelp. Clock: stick, float, honest minutes. Fog: dew point, falling pressure, advection, a cloud with no mood.

Tess is almost through the marine layer; her last radio said ten minutes if the holes hold. Mr. Peck’s van is a rumor of headlights on the coast road.

You could stop. You have enough to write the true night and still like the stories. You could also want the gallery, where the fog is still showing off, because some proofs want a stage.

You line the papers so the left side is names and the right side is mechanisms, Peck’s habit turned into a tablecloth. Cocoa rings will stain it later, which is allowed. Tess’s ten minutes might be twenty in fog. Harbor time is stretchy. You are not stretchy on rocks. You are stretchy on chairs.