Today's poem is by Rebecca Brock

Octopus
        after Sarah Wilson & Kay Redfield Jamison

To conquer a beast,
so the old Chinese proverb goes,
you must first make it beautiful—
offering latitude or space,
let's call it language, for naming
what ails and aches, what rattles clear through
the great gaping maw shifting shape
like something not human—
bleeds blue, beats three hearts
and thinks with feeling clear through the whole,
each arm—longing and loosening
the way it blends, changes skin
not just color but tone, texture, shape—
what is there to say, at the end then
when asked: who are you, what are you,
what did you desire? How to say
without speaking: I didn't know.
And what would it be to say: I danced
and spun and dove
in the ether
and didn't ever know
the limits
of my own skin.

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Copyright © 2023 Rebecca Brock All rights reserved
from The Way Land Breaks
Sheila-Na-Gig Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission