Scallop Dragging

Scallop Dragging

What a species—

still working the same

curved bay, all of us

hoping for the marvellous,

all hankering for a changed life.

                                                                Kathleen Jamie

                                                                The Beach

Sea, I think maybe

you’re the biggest thief

there is the whole round

world through, though 

the same is made true of us.

Yesterday I saw a man

climbing his scallop

drag as it hitched, full

of all the bottom of you

it could pull and something?

one of the catches maybe,

kept him scrambling that

metal web.  At one point

he drew out through

the gaps a lobster that

from where I was

standing seemed, tail

straight down and claws

straight up, to go the whole

length of his leg.  I watched

him toss it back into you,

almost thoughtless like,

(but his balance and that

swaying unanchored boat)

and move on all over

that drag.  When it was where

he wanted it to be and he

was back safe on the stern

the chain came up and down

up and down, shaking

everything out like a Fagan

might when the Dodger

came back in the morning

after a slow night.  Each piece

spilled over each piece

falling, some, to the feet

and I think I mourned those

I'd see them stepping on,

watches and wallets, and too
the fat and bulging

starfish and crab maybe a flounder...
There's the weight of  solemnity

tucked between water and air and solid

fiberglass, the swim

bladder collapsing at the stress

maybe one or two are saved

when the boys come in

with their scallop knives honed

all night, all night while

every drag past is a sweep some-

other boat maybe made, or maybe,

when they know they’re in dangerous

waters, they begin to take count

of what they keep and what

they throw back, ticking it all off

on a breast-pocket ledger

so that maybe, next pass, luck portioned,
they've strayed too close to the shoal, or

if they held back all the catch,

if they were careless: ground

they never knew was there:

and then there’s this groan

in the pully and engine

and a slight back tug and whose

boot is whose won’t matter, will
it sea, when you open your throat

and swallow them, all of them,

and, done, ruffle their hair,

a Fagan to Dodger to Oliver

who’d be saved by God

he would, but not before drowning 

for a while, no, not

before drowning.