The Octopus

 

Something that blushes

     open-eyed and comical

touches in us a place

     of sympathy or sadness

since it has a human

     weakness of its own,

feeling in each direction

     across hard slippery surfaces

until it finds a closed-in place

     it can’t resist

and makes a home.

     Of course, the fishermen

know this, dropping by rope

     terra cotta pots.

The octopus loves

     what it finds inside

The perfectly smooth lip

     into which it slips

a tentacle to circle

     the black space,

discovering no corners,

     and then arm by arm

enters wholly

     only to be drawn up

into the blue light of heaven.

 

—Jeffrey Greene, from To the Right of the Worshipper