The Octopus and the Fisherman [revised version]

Credit: Ahmed Abdul Rahman

The Octopus and the Fisherman [revised version]   

A lobster paralysed  

by venom  

makes a fine meal for the octopus,  

whose cephalopod beak  

pierces clean  

the lobster’s shell, splitting carapace  

from meat.  

And still the sea sings  

with foamy lips.  

If startled by shark  

or stingray,  

the octopus vanishes like magic —  

a puff of ink,  

or into coral colours it contorts,  

bonelessly alien.  

Still the sea sings  

with foamy lips.  

The fisherman  

rolls a cigarette  

and fingers a long-handled blade.  

Dozily he dreams  

of soft hulk drying in the Polynesian sun  

so hot, bright.  

Still the sea sings  

with foamy lips.  

He wakes  

and strikes the sea —  

hauls up a glistening mollusc  

and smashes it  

against a rock  

with all the strength  

of fifty years listening to surf hammer  

sand and stone.  

And the sea,  

with briny breath,  

leans in to sip the froth of shore —  

then slips away  

to sing once more.