Octopus

She labors eightfold – silent, swift, exact
each limb a line that finishes a thought
before the others bend to counteract
the drift. Her body does what thinking ought:
complete itself, unseen, in every act.

She changes not from fear, but from control.
The pigments shift because the world won’t stay.
To match its tremble is to stay whole
a trick of mirrors worn as social clay.
She blends into the lie to guard the soul.

Three chambers pump her metal-dark alloy,
divided not in rhythm, but in war.
One aches for stillness, one for hunt and joy,
the last for what was once and is no more.
A man knows this: how love and wrath destroy.

When danger crowds, she writes with smoke and bruise
a silence thrown, then swallowed back too fast.
The plume was meant to wound, but now she rues
its path; the ink she meant for threat has passed
into herself. She chokes on what she used.

Nine minds conspire to chart a single move.
Each limb decides, but nothing breaks apart.
Desire begins before the name can prove
its shape. Beneath the choosing lies a chart
drawn by a hand no language yet can prove.

She is no beast, no jest, no accident.
She is a marvel built in darker rooms
where thought first learned to hide its own intent,
where God, with wide-eyed awe, designed the bloom
that swims through mystery, magnificent.