The speaker sits in a crowded seafood restaurant at Brown's lobster pound, and the poem moves between that busy present and memories of the grandmother, nana, who used to come to this stretch of coast. The opening is full of smells and noise: hot oil, fried clams, picnic tables packed close. Even the view, flat marshes and a nuclear reactor dome, is described in a dry, offhand way.
Then the poem looks back. Nana's father rented rooms nearby, apparently through a sneaky sublet with fellow gamblers, so the family could escape the mills of Lawrence for the cold surf and sun. The details suggest summers that were scrappy but precious.
The ending is quiet and tender. The speaker can't see the mark where nana had skin cancer removed, and she smiles without knowing her first great-grandchild is there. The mood is warm and bittersweet: the poem hints at time passing and generations overlapping, with a faint shadow of illness behind the happiness.