Summer Poetry Pop-Up: Grace Cavalieri

THE PICNIC BY THE OCEAN

The Octopus offers me one of his three hearts,

briar and holly for friendship in the second and third,

saved for times of longing, times of loss.

A strange romance, I admit—

Friends would never approve or believe,

yet he was untouched by human hands.

How can we say this is not a source of wonder—

“Who will sing my song, if not you?”  he asked.

“Who will dream of me, as I lay under the stillness of water?”

Even an Octopus can be eloquent, and then again,

as we know, enormous need can become power.

What am I supposed to do now?

I stand by the water,

my woolen dress unraveling in the waves. 

                                                           --Grace Cavalieri

Grace Cavalieri's new book is Other Voices, Other Lives (Alan Squire Publisher.) She celebrates 41 years on public radio with "The Poet and the Poem" now from the Library Of Congress.Her play "Quilting The Sun," which premiered at the Smithsonian Institution, will see a 2019 production.