the worksite-as-flesh

You poured me

let me loose
in a metal cave.

We ran together
traversed
took it in

until
I slipped, from
and came to be
left there. Taking up new space

a symbiosis
with the likes of
you.

In 1993, off the coast of Shetland, the Braer tanker ran aground on the shore of Garths Ness.
The tanker had been travelling from Norway to Canada - a long journey for any-body. The choppy sea along with the forceful winds ensured this ship would spill its guts. Predictably, the oil gushed. Unfurling like a greasy tongue, oil lapped at the green waves and seeped outwards until it reached the edges of vision. The sea engulfed this new liquid and they hybridised. Coating everything within touching distance, the coastguard at Lerwick looked down at her watch. It was coming up to 5.20am. Her shift had started 19 minutes ago.

I poured out again
I rose with the tide

The coastguard at Lerwick’s name was Freya. A year after the spill, Freya was walking along the Burn of Garth. She had taken to walking for two or three hours on her day off with her dog Spike. Freya often spoke to Spike. “Let’s go to the sea Spike! Aye!” Spike would reply with jumps and barks. On this day, which happened to be the anniversary of the Braer spill, Freya and Spike walked West towards Sumburgh beach. It was warm and salt flickered in the air around them. They approached the shoreline, and Freya got lost for a moment in the encapsulation of it. The sun spread across the sea, glinting softly with each rise and fall of the tide. Freya called Spike to come with her to the water’s edge. When she got there, she squatted down and reached for the lapping sea. With both hands, Freya scooped up the water and pushed it up against her cheeks, letting the saltiness sting her eyes for a moment. Spike splashed in the shallow waves. When they got home, Freya towelled Spike’s mane and spooned out his dinner. Freya ate her own dinner and went to bed.

An emerald nestling in black velvet
then
a feeling in the skin.

A speckling of
perspiration?

All work does tend to make you sweat.

e

a

k

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g

:

The job of guarding the Shetland coastline felt quotidian to Freya. It wasn't at all.
The Braer spill had entailed a portentous clean up effort. Freya deliberately nodded to the sea every morning as a sort of ritualistic acknowledgement of the chaos that ensued from that spill. The waves nodded back, heavier than before, weighed down by the residual slick of the lost ooze.

slip
appear
sidle
emerge

I came to you

in floods.

A remnant, now
rigged

to your main line.

l

I began to visit Freya in a way that both of us would not have expected. It was a night shift, and even though Lerwick was loud behind them, Freya felt more relaxed than usual. After Braer, their stomach had a new habit of buckling. Tonight, it felt loose, sliding around their belly as if detached from all the salient human pipework that was meant to keep it in place. Freya sunk into the feeling as they gathered a few loose sheets of paperwork and began surveying the dials and screens that made up most of the interior of the coastguard station.

A month ago, I awoke from a prolonged sleep. On this day I had risen up to the surface to take stock, stretching my globula appendage into each corner of space. It took me a few seconds to realise that I wasn’t where I had last been left. The sides of this new enclosure weren’t as cold and hard as before. In fact, the sides to this space were opaque, and felt much like my own in-sides did. This shocked me, and I recoiled. Then, against my will, I was mobile, sloshing up against the sides of an unknown interior and losing a little of myself each time.

We became a whole
and you cradled me in nearly every one of your cells
every one of them off-shore.

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Commissioned by Generator Projects
India Boxall, 2020