Market

Passing through the market
Allez! Allez! Allez!
Arms laden with the heavy odours
Of peach and melon
Pêches blanches, melons
Paper bag of luxuriant deep red cherries
Ah non! C’est français ça!
Harvesting the summer
Sucré! Sucré! Sucré!
I pushed my way past
Balancing wooden cageots colour-stamped
Spilling Spain and Morocco
Onto groaning stalls
When the smell of the sea
Swelled like a cool wave
Heaving over boxes of chinking cockles,
Bright shells creamy foam-white
Wicker baskets mussel-brimming
Colours of deep water, violet, dark amethyst.
Whelks and shrimps
Yellow-green, rose pink
Palourdes, pétoncles
Gleam with the silver,
Dimpled light of shallow water,
Coquilles Saint-Jacques,
Langouste, ecrevisses, crabes
The velvet brown, olive green
Of anenome fringed rock pools,
All piled about with the deep green odorous
Strands of kelp, saltwater slick.
And my heart caught in my throat
With an unexpected sob
As the sea breeze tugged at my hair
Crying with the yearning voice of the gulls
For the tall cliffs
The sleek sand
And jewelled pools of my childhood.