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4th August, 2023

Friday Poem – ‘Octopus Self’ by Rachel Carney

Photo of the tangled legs of an octopus floating near the ocean floor

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Octopus Self’ by Rachel Carney from her debut collection Octopus Mind.

Octopus Self It took me years to tame the octopus of me, to lure her out, to show her that the world is safer than she thinks it is. I set her high up on a r ock, where her colours merge and multiply. Some days she basks in the shallows, content with the strange shape of herself, coiling, uncoiling, confident, serene. Or she swims out into deep ocean currents, str ong in her certainty, calm in her convictions. Other days she cowers in the fissure of her lair, sure that every shadow is a shark, curled up around the bubble of her failure, peering out at life in all its magical abundance. That’ s when the rest of me begins to lose its substance tossed about lik e flotsam on the surface of the ocean. The octopus of me lets go of who she really is, casting off a tentacle in wet despair. She watches, as it’s torn away from her. And that’s when I must gather up the remnants of my second self, and huddle down beside her. Together, we wait.

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Related Books

This cover shows a photograph of a stone sculpture of a half-profile woman's face submerged beneath the waves. The text reads: Octopus Mind. Rachel Carney.

Octopus Mind

Rachel Carney

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