Happy World Octopus Day!

 Happy World Octopus Day! Here's a poem from my new collection, Still Life With Octopus, in celebration:

Still Life With Octopus (II)

I only asked her once to climb inside a jar for me. (Before we met, I'd watched all the videos of those experiments.) She sighed but did it, said I could screw the lid, released herself easily. You could become any shape you want, I said. She said nothing. One arm sent itself out to switch the kettle on. While she made us tea, I put the jar back in the cupboard, feeling that slight ache from too much sitting in my hip bones, my lower back, where fixed part meets fixed part of me.