We Are The Ghouls

Horseshoe Crab, Primehook Beach, DE 2011


I collect their discarded molts and dead remains while the tide retreats and the sun bleeds across the bay.  Some mornings the beach is littered with horseshoe crabs stuck on their backs, their pointed tails trying to gain purchase in the sand so that they can right themselves, their 8 legs blindly stabbing at a distant sky.  We flip them over.  But others gather them up and they are drained of their copper-based, blue blood.  Not drained until death, at least not intentionally, but drained to sate medical research needs.  It's ghoulish and cruel, with no international standards.