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In king crab season, the cannery ship
Trembled at anchor, its great boilers steaming.
The crew inside were soaked under raingear,
Working the lines, extracting flesh from shells
With jets of water gushing into flumes.
I worked the crab boats tied along the hull,
Long shifts in the holds, tossing live creatures
Two at a time in the lowered mesh bags.
And when we'd cleared a hold and hosed it down,
A toke or cigarette took up the slack.
Above us they went on killing in thousands.
Guys we called butchers plunged their chain-mailed chests
Down on the blades, breaking crab across them-
Guts and backs in the grinders, claws and legs
Packed frozen for the Lower 48.
We waited for the silence between killings,
When mesh was full of nothing but the sky,
To elevate our heads above a hatch
And watch the rain slant down through masts and nets.
Beyond were hump-backed islands under clouds,
As if a pod of whales, now settled in
To watch the people in their theatre,
Were spellbound to rock and heather by the scene.
And none of us who worked there, none of our dreams,
Could break the spell and bring them back to life.
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