Fist
The octopus frightened me the first time
I saw it I didn’t believe
something so strange lived even in a place
I couldn’t see
it flew forcefully through the water
a human hand gesturing
with a dancer’s confidence and sometimes
the anger of a fist
I stood before the tank in the darkened room
beads of spotlight scattering
upon the water’s surface
the heavier oil of light
plunging down into that square of cold sea
Karina Borowicz’s forthcoming book, The Bees Are Waiting, was selected by Franz Wright for the 2011 Marick Press Poetry Prize. Her work has also appeared in AGNI, Poetry Northwest and The Southern Review.
Categories: Imprisonment
This is wonderful. I love the light sinking because it’s heavier than water: that’s just brilliant, and brings up all the faintly repellent fascination of watching heavier fluids sink through lighter ones — those rippling motions that are exactly like those of a swimming octopus.
& the ingenuousness of the first stanza knocks you off balance to start with, there’s something almost child-like about it.
lovely
“The heavier oil of light plunging down into that square of cold sea…” ohh…