Lovely Penguin

By Marie Gordon

I am down here at the ocean’s vents
Pitch black and boiling in the darkness
Next to lampreys and slimy sea things
Mingling together in their sauna

The sponges soak slime from shooting eels
I float in the midst of their frenzy
Of attacking vikings and victims
Dipping in seaweed, wandering out

I hover, little octopus dull
Within this feeding swarm but not
Included in the festivities
Like the eels and the sponges that swim

They synchronize puzzles together
They are fitting, and sensible fish
Diving absurd, chaotic, trenches
Swooning heteronormative weeds

I am purple and invisible
Under a curtain exposed by glows
Neons and shining scales push me out
From my little cave into the blaze

I see eels wrapping sponges tightly
Basking in glowing darkness and depth
Unafraid of the unknown trenches
Soaking up steam and comfort from vents

This dark floor is their homey cabin
With its crevices, steams, alchemy
Mysterious creations tandem
With the banal process not unknown

I watch for other octopuses
While I hover over spectacle
An outsider inside their fury
Feeling the heat in my tentacles

I am polymorphous not squishy
Floating fingers, not straight dashing stripes
I am absorbent of my own kind
But I cannot soak up like a sponge

I like to hover in my bubble
My spherical body so purple
That it terrifies your swarming love
Only because I don’t soak or slime

A lonely octopus but gleeful
In good faith amongst green seaweeds
Don’t tell me I’m not an octopus,
That I dropped my glasses in the sand

I feel with my little arms the warmth
Of your hetero vents that freeze me
In my place to hover above you
Only to cloud your world with my ink

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