By the Seashore

Here is a moment from one of my favourite poems ...

I was friendly with the fishermen,
Under an upturned boat often
When the rain pelted sat with them,
Heard about the sea, and stored it up
In secret, believing every word.
They became used to me.
If I wasn't on the quay
The old fisherman sent a girl
To shout to me: 'Our men are back!
We're frying the flatfish.'

'By the Seashore', Anna Akhmatova, in Selected Poems, Penguin Books, 1988, p. 32.