The women who clean fish are all named Rose or Grace. They wake up close to the water,damp and dreamy beneath white sheets,-think) of white beaches.
It is always humid where they work.
They wear old clothes because the smell will never go.
It is always humid where they work.
They wear old clothe because the smell will never go.
On the floor, chlorine.
On the window, dry streams left by gulls.
When tourists come to watch them
working over belts of cod and hake,
they don't look up.
They stand above the gutter. When the belt ___(start).
they pack the bodies in, ten per box,
their tales crisscrossed as if in sacrament.
The dead fish fall compliantly.
It is the iridescent scales that stick,
clinging to ___(check) and wrist,
lighting up hours later in a dark room.
The packers say they feel orange spawn
between their fingers, the smell of themselves
more like salt than peach.
Ignoring people 