The Octopi Jars Poem by Michael Burch

The Octopi Jars
by Michael R. Burch

Long-vacant eyes
now lodged in clear glass,
a-swim with pale arms
as delicate as angels'...

you are beyond all hope
of salvage now...
and yet I would pause,
no fear! ,
to once touch
your arcane beaks...

I, more alien than you
to this imprismed world,
notice, most of all,
the scratches on the inside surfaces
of your hermetic cells...

and I remember documentaries
of albino Houdinis
slipping like wraiths
over the walls of shipboard aquariums,
slipping down decks'
brine-lubricated planks,
spilling jubilantly into the dark sea,
parachuting through clouds of pallid ammonia...

and I know now in life you were unlike me:
your imprisonment was never voluntary.

Originally published by Triplopia and The Poetic Musings of Sam Hudson. Keywords/Tags: Octopus, Octopi, Medusa, Sea Angel, Angel, Angels, Nature, Sea, Ocean, Aquarium, Aliens, Imprisonment, Prison, Ship, Ships, Shipwreck