Their salmon farms contain infected fish
in cages where Norwegian owners say,
or wish,
the pathogens and parasites don’t stray
across migration routes of wild stocks,
but when they rip the flesh from pen to dish
the bodies bleed and, under harbor docks
through covert pipes, the packing plants disgorge
great billows of infected blood, a pox
on all the claims they make that they discharge
themselves in ways which safeguard wild nature—
for profit, they contaminate the future.
READ MORE
‘Blood water’ pumped into ocean prompts investigation [Times Colonist]
Fish Farms [Poets Reading the News]
John Beaton’s poetry is entirely metrical and has been widely published in media as diverse as Able Muse, Gray’s Sporting Journal, and Northwards Now (UK). He lives on Vancouver Island BC.
Editorial art by Elle Aviv Newton.
