Steam! Wood chairs! Wood tables! Blustery port! Windows open to the sea!

Oh, salt! Oh, brine! Oh, cold! Rank smell of fish! Leftover shells iridescent!

Twelve years of age and I will dare try mussels! My father, forty,

Curly-haired, bespectacled, portly, clean-shaven,

Tells me tales of eating buttery creatures with his father, my grandfather;

How grown he felt! How mature! A twinkle in his eyes!

He turns his gaze on me, as if for the first time he’s realized

he, too, is a father – gleaming, gleaming!