Cancerous Sneak, by Helen Freeman

Cancerous Sneak                         

after Octopus Mosaic, by Iulian Moldovan (Romanian) 2016

You slip through collarbone portal, past muscle sweep and loiter behind cloisters of tissue. Your tentacles break boundaries of old milky ways as you dance on to new coverts. One day I see you fluttering on screen, an image out of the blue, hiding in plain sight. You light up like an algal bloom of plankton, catch my eye and uncurl a tentacle before scurrying off into tangled kelp fronds, strands tailing behind you like mermaid locks. 

Do I even know you? Are you a quiet yet hungry friend, all heart and hug, who’s already settled in? Should we cling to each other and swim further in? Should we quick-step in ever increasing circles together? 

The experts counsel your immediate capture and eviction before you multiply and take over, tile by tile, one cell at a time. They sharpen their knives. 

Now rubbery thoughts fill my mind. I wonder when you first planted your Judas kiss and all else fell back in awe. 

As the beat accelerates, let me whisper a warning to you of the upcoming chase with harpoons, pellets and poison. I know you will leave your suction marks – stitched seams, yellow-brown bruises, laser scorch, blood-raw skin – and that I too will become a shape-shifter, but I’m sorry, I have to overtake you, stop you in your tracks, smack you down, pluck you out.

Helen Freeman

Helen Freeman started writing poetry whilst recovering from an accident in Oman and got hooked.  She has poems published on sites like Clear Poetry, Open Mouse, Algebra of Owls and The Ekphrastic Review.  She has spent many years in East Africa and the Arabian Gulf, but currently lives in Durham, England. Instagram @chemchemi.hf 

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