Rotating around the plant I am learning new ways to torture,
I mean process fish. Fish move around the
large warehouse on two to three different conveyor belts, stopping only to have
another part of their body removed. Every
part of the fish is used, much to the disappointment of seagulls hovering
nearby. Twice, a seagull has just walked into the warehouse looking for scraps. Bold bird.
Blood Bath
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Marie Antoinette's Last Day October 16, 1793 |
Restaurants and food banks request a
whole fish, beheaded and gutted. I stand
at the washing area, gloved up, the holes in my full length rubber
apron sealed by duct tape, waiting, breath holding. Plop, plop, plop. Each fish falls off a belt 4 inches into the washing station for it's final bath before placed in a large crate.
After a while the slime and blood turn the water red; blood washing
off blood. I scrub them quickly, opening
the gut like a suitcase looking for residue of organs that, just half a day ago, beat
with life. The sound of the fish guillotine caw-chunking down on necks 15 feet behind me keeps an irregular rhythm. Only the fish large enough to lose their
heads do.
The Rack
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Medieval Torture Rack, England |
After the loads of whole fish are processed I’m sent to the
racks. Fillets are stacked orderly, not touching each other or the edges, and sent to the freezer. Teams of two stack a rack.
Two to three racks are worked on at a time.
A rack sits on a pallet, is about
5 feet tall has seven compartments that stack on top each other. Workers make like a metal, plastic, fish sandwich over and over. The blue plastic is spread onto the wet, white plastic board, much like a fitted and top sheet for a bed, with the fish snuggled up between. Little "babies" deserving of a lullaby. (Now I know I've lost my mind.)
…Rack, basket, white plastic board, blue
plastic wrap, fish, blue wrap, basket, white board, blue plastic, fish, blue
plastic, new rack…
The rack plays
out on everyone’s back. You start work
at 6 inches off the pallet, squatting over it to arrange the fish onto the sheet, then slowly bend your way up, ‘till the pallet is
just under the arm pits. I do this over
and over for ten hours. With a 15 minute break every two hours, and a half hour lunch, three days in a row.
My mind starts to get wiggy.
I look down at the fillets, all hint of fish removed, now just a hump of
slimy flesh and start to wonder what else they could be. Cold large pieces of raw bacon. Large slug penises.
Pink tape worms. Then it hits me— tongues.
Dead Tongues Tell No Tales
Cut out laid out
on a sheet, in a row
Pierced and strung
hung 'round the neck
The cutter, the puller
yanks out grabs full
Eyes of the carver
cold as a tomb
Red drops run
down, never away
Dead tongues
tell no tales
***
Wow! What an amazing retelling of a day-in-the-life of a susfishiously inspired poet. Can't wait to read more!
ReplyDeleteYou are too kind Susan. Working here feels like I am the prisoner and the torturer. I tell you, honestly, all my sins have been purged!
ReplyDelete