2016 Calvert Award: “Pelagic” by Hannah Edwards ’16

Pelagic

Gifford Beal, Launching the Boat, 1930, oil on canvas. Purchase made possible by the Fine Arts Fund, 1932.

by Hannah Edwards ’16
after Gifford Beal’s Launching the Boat

It’s real work. The honest kind.

Like God intended—all day, hauling

boats, hauling nets. Sliding the knife

between gills and skin; It’s them or you

out here, and only one deserves to eat.

Gutting them with salt-roughened

hands. Proving you’re worth

the weight of the silver

scales and bones you throw back.