Crabs

A market below a LIRR bridge. Fruits, and vegetable exhibited in their shelves on the sidewalk, with human traffic creeping by to the subway station. And flies flies flies resting on the grapes. Fish occupy one-fourth of the building. Just along the wall, fish laid side by side, on ice. And on the end of that row, crabs in boxes. Stacked together like dirt. Twitching, snapping crabs. And the man watching over them picked at them with his gripper to make sure they still twitched. He chucked a dead one in the garbage. He then picked up another one he had doubts about, and the others crabs grabbed it before it was out of their range. The man and the crabs engaged tug-of-war for a good ten seconds until the man won. He tossed the crab upside down onto a cardboard surface. It twitched. Still good to eat. He returned it to the crab box.