Scott Ferry 

Clockwise the sleeping octopus

Her name has nothing to do with time, but with the way
she spins with all her arms stretching out. Not like when
she clamps down and digs her beak into the eyes
of a barracuda, and not like when her mate wraps
his heptocotylus inside her mantle,
                                                         but simply when
the silver gobies clean her back, her beak, each leg.
She stalls, sleeps in a circle like a fleshy bouquet
and her red skin turns pale, signaling that she is ready
and safe to be touched, to be nibbled upon,
and softly stripped of hangers on
                                                     by anonymous teeth.
When the cleaning is done, she glows crimson again,
expands out her defenses, cranes her body over itself
to become incandescent, enraged with blood.
She again is the huntress, composed,
in no particular rush.

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