A slight tug at my DNA
a tighter grip on my crow’s feet
the white glare on the waveless sea
watered-down with gusts of rain
as I follow a road that hugs the coast
to a disused lighthouse at Cape Meares
dragging a hydra-headed hurt
till I stumble on the trunkless Octopus Tree
When you were green were your limbs forced down
hard to the ground, were you pilloried
till you elbowed up like a candelabra
were you told ‘no, you’re an octopus tree’
I can’t stop looking at what I see
where a trunk never was, so close to me
when almost a sound knocks at the heart
and I want it to be fiercer—but
the wind can’t play on what isn’t there
and the waves keep coming up against the cliff
and the shadows crop along the moss
and the horses shift on the high meadow
beyond this monster Sitka spruce
nothing but arms held up in the air