The Gables

Steps like crowded teeth lead down to broken shells and shale,

A ground to make you run like hot coals.

The flat cool sand of the shore is a silky safeground for bare feet;

We enter the water with shrieks and puffs of pain, seaweed licking our legs as we dodge rocks and crabs,

The cold turning our bodies purple,

“Get your shoulders in!” we call, knowing that once you do, the warmth will return. Things that City Kids don’t know.

You sit in the garden all lavender skirts, a cup of tea and an Ireland’s Own Magazine,

Kind words for those who have torn themselves on a rock or been barked at by a dog.

Aunties lounge around like leopards on branches breaking their chatting to sun-cream children and dispense sandwiches and even take a dip themselves,

They all learned to swim here too one time.

In the evening the men return with the smell of a day at sea upon them, 

Tackle boxes, rods and basins are dragged up onto the lawn,

Tiny inky crabs are flung away, legs flailing like spinning stars as they slice back into the water, seaweed walked in the grass, hooks placed away from the dogs,

Herrings are gutted by the dozen, the treasured seabass are banked in the freezer for a Sunday some time at the end of summer,

The barbeque is lit and garden greens laid out, "Summers are for salads," Mam says.

My fork tastes of the same dry salt that is still in my hair and bespeckles my freckles,

Even my Australia t-shirt seems to be splattered with something; sauce, probably, as small hands hurry to have.

When the day grows to a close and cars are packed up I get lucky and am allowed to sleepover. 

The musty back bedroom, the top bunk, second hand sleeping bags, two-to-a-bed, top-to-toe. 

A tower overlooking the sea to sleep in, the prize at the end of the day.