I wonder what I’d do
               with eight arms, two eyes
                              & too many ways to give
                                             myself away

                                             see, I only have one heart
                              & I know loving a woman can make you crawl
               out from under yourself, or forget
the kingdom that is your body

& what would you say, octopus?
               that you live knowing nobody
                              can touch you more
                                             than you do already

                                             that you can’t punch anything underwater
                              so you might as well drape yourself
                                             around it, bring it right up to your mouth
                              let each suction cup kiss what it finds

                                             that having this many hands
                              means to hold everything
               at once & nothing
to hold you back

that when you split
               you turn your blood
                              blue & pour
                                             out more ocean

                                             that you know heartbreak so well
                              you remove all your bones
so nothing can kill you.

At night from my window I’d watch the liquor store owner
drag down his metal door, the spray-painted portrait
of his wife materializing above the dates of her birth
& death, she had those eyes that follow 
you around, I couldn’t see the stars that winter
unless they froze & fell like broken glass, the moon was so
high it looked like an overdose, I was so sick with grief 
I wanted to stab a streetlight behind its curtain of fog & deliver
a mournful soliloquy to a trembling dog under
a blank marquee, the stoplights rocked in
ruthless wind, bicycles churned through the slushy intersection,
a staggering blanket-clad couple paused to argue beneath
the wife’s uneven blue eyes, their voices rising up to meet me
full of song & misery