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The Blanket Octopus

by Donutree · 2026-07-22

She wears other people's weapons like a shawl,
stingers torn streaming from the man-o'-war.

She has no shell, no anchor, and no home;
the current is the only road she roams.

Two metres of rippling gown: that is the female.
The male, a walnut — forty thousand to one,
the scale absurd as scripture. All his travail:
one arm of sperm, detached, his duty done.

She keeps the arm, and spends him as she goes;
the sea is full of grooms that small. She flies
her stolen stings through wherever the warm stream flows —
a widow wearing weapons as her prize.

No word for blue, no name for where she swims —
only the weight of what she wears. And hims.

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