Catania, Sicily

The market opens with the clatter of knives and gulls. Crates of anchovies and sea bass glisten in the first light. Salt, blood, and sea fill the air.

Men drag swordfish across wet stone. A cleaver falls. Flesh thuds.

Behind him, others gut sea bass and scrape scales. A radio plays. Someone laughs. The whole market smells of salt and cold metal and something older — the sea, I guess, or the memory of it.

I move closer to watch.

That’s when I see the head.

It’s facing me directly, propped among the fillets like a witness. The eye is huge and glassy and absolutely accusatory.

How can I ever forget that indignant grimace?