We called him Blue Grandad—
not because his eyes were milky blue like larimars,
or because he wore blue overalls,
but because he only ever drove blue cars.
He said the colour reminded him of the ocean,
where he’d sailed for months at a time
as an engineer on merchant navy ships.
I was only there in case we got a flat wheel,
was his running joke.
When he wasn’t making us laugh,
he recited poems
he’d written in the quiet of his dimly lit bunk.
Dipping his pen
into the water’s black well,
he told of the brightest stars he’d ever seen—
stars the sky would surrender to the sea,
only for them to taunt the waves
by rising again.
He wrote about a pâtissier from Aquitaine
who could plait pastry quicker
than he could tie his boots,
and a fortune teller
who wore a trail of jewels
across the smooth, golden sands of her belly.
He wrote about home too and the things he missed:
cutting turf at Mackle’s bog,
the walk to chapel on Sundays,
the funeral of his youngest brother.
One time, reading me a poem
about fishing for eels at dawn in Lough Neagh,
he stopped midway
and looked up beyond me—
as if hearing something in the distance.
I watched his lips shape a word.
Then he leaned in,
beckoned me closer,
and whispered:
I was ordered up one night—up on deck—
to give the men a hand.
There was trouble.
I’d fired a gun before, but…
He leaned closer still,
the bows of our faces almost touching.
I maybe killed a man or two that night.
For once, silence filled the space between us
like a long em dash,
and from either end
we clung,
drifting there together
for what felt like a nautical mile.
Then, with a sparkle of larimar
and a wink,
it broke.
He straightened himself,
took a long breath,
and cast us off again
into the early morning mist.
