Lust
Last year we visited a fishery and watched people breed salmon.
The fish were bred in adirondaks and eventually their spawn stocked rivers around New York State.
The facilities reeked of fish. A deep, penetrating smell that lingered over my clothes and hands.
The machinery pulsed deep and low. Syncopated moans escaped a huge conveyor belt.
The fish were big. The length of my whole arm.
Irridescent and streamlined.
The female fish were tipped out of a tank and rolled down the conveyor belt.
They thrashed at the sudden shock of air; harsh on their gills.
At the bottom of the conveyor belt stood a huge man with a baseball bat and when the fish would come he brought the bat down on their heads.
It was quieter than expected.
I could barely even hear it under the machienery's constant moans.
And after,
They were whipped across a metal table towards the next two men on the assembly line who would dig a hook into the fishes' neck--right below their jaw and split the fish open jaw to tail.
They tore the fish in two and
Thousands
Of perfect perlidescent eggs
Came rippling out in waves
Leaving an emptied out carcass of what once was an atlantic salmon
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