"In Defense of a Friend"

What of the
cognitive functioning of
the Octopus, that grand
gesture of gesturers, as it
slips one long and wispy tent-
acle down the clear plastic
tubing of an aquatic
Knossos to delicately discern its
direction, and after escape, will
undoubtedly recall the route upon
prodding from those cephalopod
seers supping on the tasteless,
arid "out there"?

Or how its problem-solving skills put
most human children--and many of the
not-so-young--to shame, morphing text-
ure and hemming its hues to
coordinate with the coral, a hedge
of rock, or even a grid laid like
a gauntlet at his eight-folded
feet--where is his
"Theory of Mind"?

Acrobats and escape artists,
pranksters preening in mime of
greater prey than they, three
hearts pumping great escapes as they
satisfy an uncommon curiosity for
cameras and deep-sea divers, all those
tasty fish swimming so short a tank
away, so why not slither and slime
a course across and pay one's
dinner a visit?

I'd venture to guess that
should someone shine too bright a
spotlight upon my bedchamber at
night, I'd also direct a precise and
powerful jetstream to short the bulb and,
well, if it takes the building out also, so
be it, but you won't find me twiddling my
tentacular toes, only instead the inky blush of
my immediate retreat, hiding like only
I could would I were as brilliantly beaked as
this intrepid intellectual of the sea, under-
estimated, undefined, deserving of
devotion I can only render writ large,
if not, at least, with
longing.