Your grandmother’s, this set of six. I imagine her, fine-boned and elegant, serving turtle soup in these bowls. Delicate as eggshells, they nestle in their saucers while golden turtles drift around their sides, motionless against a hidden tide. Remember how we dived with turtles in sun-sparkled waters of the Gulf; how you admired their leisured grace, the slow speed of their flippers as they flew the sea like air. Remember how one night we watched hatchlings splutter from their nests, tumble down moon- white sand to bounce like pennies into hungry surf – hatchlings as tiny as these bowls that I will never use for turtle soup.

This poem was originally published in The Beach Hut.