Self-Portrait in Ink

As the gone-
translucent

octopus
jet-blasts into evasion, vanishing

while its ink-sac spurts
a cloud of defensive

mucus & coagulant
azure-black pigment,

self-shaped
octopus imago in ink, so the shark

gnashes at that blobbed
sepia phantom,

pseudomorph
that disperses into black

nebulae & shreds
with each shark-strike

& the escaped
octopus throbs

beyond, see-through
in the see-through water, untouched— :

so, go
little poem, little

ink-smudge-on-fingertip
& -print, mimicker

& camouflage,
self-getaway, cloud-

scribble, write
out my dissipating

name on the water,
emptied sac of self-illusive ink . . .

Bruce Beasley
Virginia Quarterly Review
Volume 81, Number 1
Winter 2005

© 2005 by Virginia Quarterly Review.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

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