on dreams of giant squid
They are slimy and in my house.
Their tentacles slick and long…like tongues -with millions of mouths,
suction-cup lips that open and close, open and close,
Winding, slithering, around my coffee tables, my forest-green leather love seats
Making rolls, ripples, waves under the furry, grassy carpet
As if they were growing roots.
I cut them open.
Their insides are wet and cold.
My living room smells like fish,
Like salt, like the ocean - the yard is turning to water, blue, blue sea
Deeper than it looks; I can’t see the bottom …
But where there is still grass I stab deep into the dirt, and dig
-this part-
looks like rich chocolate cake
It smells like worms.
The squid (or is it squids?) keep coming. They have giant eyes - the better to see you with, my dear- and little hook mouths (hookworms, they burrow into your skin, fishing hooks, they catch in your cheek, shiny thin membrane fish cheeks) and all those tentacles. Ten, at least.
Coming in through the windows and the back door and the front door.
They don’t ring the bell or even try to knock,
how rude.
There is never an octopus.
Later I find them in the convenience store,
under fluroescent lights, open 7 till 11,
they're small and pre-packaged, flattened in plastic wrap: tentacles and hoods and hooks and eyes all, dried all, all in plastic.
There’s something unsettling about it.
I prefer my squid stringy, white and dry
(someone once told me that smegma tastes like dried squid. But I like dried squid, I said. Then you’ll like the taste of smegma, she told me, and I wrinkled my nose gross)
unrecognizable.
I can’t imagine just eating this flattened cephalopod whole.
“American,” Zach accuses me.
Their tentacles slick and long…like tongues -with millions of mouths,
suction-cup lips that open and close, open and close,
Winding, slithering, around my coffee tables, my forest-green leather love seats
Making rolls, ripples, waves under the furry, grassy carpet
As if they were growing roots.
I cut them open.
Their insides are wet and cold.
My living room smells like fish,
Like salt, like the ocean - the yard is turning to water, blue, blue sea
Deeper than it looks; I can’t see the bottom …
But where there is still grass I stab deep into the dirt, and dig
-this part-
looks like rich chocolate cake
It smells like worms.
The squid (or is it squids?) keep coming. They have giant eyes - the better to see you with, my dear- and little hook mouths (hookworms, they burrow into your skin, fishing hooks, they catch in your cheek, shiny thin membrane fish cheeks) and all those tentacles. Ten, at least.
Coming in through the windows and the back door and the front door.
They don’t ring the bell or even try to knock,
how rude.
There is never an octopus.
Later I find them in the convenience store,
under fluroescent lights, open 7 till 11,
they're small and pre-packaged, flattened in plastic wrap: tentacles and hoods and hooks and eyes all, dried all, all in plastic.
There’s something unsettling about it.
I prefer my squid stringy, white and dry
(someone once told me that smegma tastes like dried squid. But I like dried squid, I said. Then you’ll like the taste of smegma, she told me, and I wrinkled my nose gross)
unrecognizable.
I can’t imagine just eating this flattened cephalopod whole.
“American,” Zach accuses me.