Self-Portrait As an Octopus
Eight legs move me whirlygig,
sandscanner, waterthrust gills
across the ocean floor,
ascended from fathoms to surface,
pelagic-magic pass by my cousin
nautilus, living fossil as she dumps
her chambers to climb. At the reef
I search for words; copepod, clam, crustacean
look out I can eat you whole. All sucker-
tucker, I climb over reach into coral
to feed then go roundbound into a cave
jazzy-color dream; then again
awake as popcorn-cracking
static of reef life entices, I find
more words, anemone, salinity;
jellybellies float in the current above,
making visible the unseen; I try to dance,
all wavy-davy, but hey I’m no jellyfish;
I’ve got a head and a mouth and eight
magnificent legs, to walk on and reach
with; in a tide pool I flatten, adapt
as a landwalker, 2-leg, spies me at the edge.
I curiously coil its un-sucker rubber
before I shoot away in the wake.
.
Michelle Ortega is a speech-language pathologist whose poetry and writing has been widely published online and in print. Her chapbook, When You Ask Me, Why Paris, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press (July 2025). She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Arts By The People, and has participated in many of their programs. She was selected for the 2023 Writing Lab Ekphrastic Residency, and then facilitated the 2024 residency, co-authoring the resulting journal, Like Waves through Flesh. Her writing is catalogued at www.michelleortegawrites.com
.
Stone Poetry Quarterly 