OCTOPUS: A FISHY TALE

We never meant to become entangled
in its limbs that tickled, wrapped and strangled
round our arms and necks. I saw the bosun
go in first with his glittering harpoon,
aloft at the end of a sinuous
arm and saw it snapped in eight by strong legs
licking round the blade like eight generous
tongues. It thralled us all, twenty dolly pegs,
each clipped in place along a suckered snake
that slimed and writhed across an ocean floor.

What gave us breath? Who knows? Two hours or more
it raced over reef and bank. In its wake
a haze of bubbles shimmered, powder kegs
of sand exploded where its enormous
tentacles dragged the sand and lifted dregs
of wrecks like ours. Others too, courageous
in their effort, must have drowned. Only one
escaped. My muscle slipped the net, slick-spun
flesh that tightened vices where it angled
strangely hooks and knots and finally dangled.