A queer thing about those waters: there are no
Birds there, or hardly any.
I did not miss them, I do not remember
Missing them, or thinking it uncanny.
The beach so-called was a blinding splinter of limestone,
A quarry outraged by hulls.
We took pleasure in that: the emptiness, the hardness
Of the light, the silence, and the water's stillness.
But this was the setting for one of our murderous scenes.
This hurt, and goes on hurting:
The venomous soft jelly, the undersides.
We could stand the world if it were hard all over.
This is the volta within the poem. After reminiscing on the peaceful area, the writer takes a turn for the worse and relates it to a murder scene. I believe that the writer may have committed a crime here as a child. While reminiscing on the place, the writer seems to have struck a memory that has haunted her for years. It also seems like she knew the place very well, like she grew up close to it (the beach so-called…). 
 Why does the narrator wait to bring up their haunting view of the setting? It seems as if they were trying to avoid the perspective as long as possible.
Across the Bay