Derek N Otsuji

Hunting for Octopus at Night

We wade into the black bay
under a whisper of moon, curtain of ink
drawn back by the gas lantern’s
hissing flame to reveal, in clearness,
the seafloor, where we scan,
spears in hand, for red plumes
of the blooming octopus
walking shallow sands.

In the lamp’s circle
we huddle close. We’re amateurs,
following our guide
whose agreed
to show us his backyard waters.

Wavelets lap at our bare legs.
We talk to fill the silence,
giggling at each squish
beneath our feet.

Out of the black
a needle fish launches, flies
over J’s shoulder,
narrowly missing his head.
A twisting silver torpedo
plunges back
into dark. 

We’re electrified
but quickly cautioned by a tale
of a fisherman’s boy
impaled in the heart
by just such a fish’s needling beak.

J spears a goat fish,
then a mullet. Our bucket
won’t return empty
at least. 

But no octopus—
shy recluse
wreathed about with arms
like water weeds, grasping after food and fact,
a mind moving with serpentine
stealth, intelligence in its element
where we find our wits
outmatched, led on this chase
through the watery wild, not knowing where
or to what possible end.

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Derek N Otsuji lives and writes on the southern shore of Oahu, between the Ko'olau Mountains and Kewalo Harbor. He is the author of The Kitchen of Small Hours (SIU Press, 2021). Recent work has appeared in 32 Poems, Beloit Poetry Journal, Bennington Review, The Southern Review and The Threepenny Review. New poems are forthcoming in Crazyhorse and Cincinnati Review.