Chloe Martinez The Newlyweds Feast in Winter (Peach Farm Restaurant, Boston) A man came with a net, and from one of the humming fishtanks by the register, pulled an eel, long as your arm. It thrashed (I felt the spray) then lay sleek in the net all shining and tangled when he carried it past us and disappeared into the kitchen, and was gone. That night we ate razorback clams with their shells half-open in death, and the greens called dom-yau, of which, the waitress informed us, the cook used only the youngest shoots, the tender ones; dumplings in the shape of half-moons, half and half and half, many moons piled up on the plate. We ate until we were stuffed, sluggish, and the tea steeped too long and grew bitter in the pot, and around us at each table dishes came: quivering jellyfish on a bed of rice, hot pot filling the room with the smell of ginger, squid tentacles curled and purple in the pan, and every sea-delicacy, served up long after we had made the cold walk to the train, shoulders hunched up around our bare necks—you had lost your gloves somewhere, so we each wore one of mine, and went to bed early, pulling the comforter close
Crab Orchard Review
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