Day Twelve, Poem #12 - Analagous Cephalopod

Analogous Cephalopod
NaPoWriMo prompts #9 & #12 – your mission & secret code

On a bruise blue night
no one is present
to watch the octopus pull the lever,
open the plastic flap,
and massage forth a pellet of food.

Winter winds play shadow puppets
on gray laboratory walls,
sodium lamp marionettes
startle to life,
strum window blinds,
wave talon tendrils in disarray.

There is order and there is afterthought.
A jug of formaldehyde
waits conspicuous,
like a wattle on a
fancy hen,
to protract the limp remains.

But now in the half light,
now in the icy fringe of daybreak,
the neon legs swoon in murky elation,
frisking the pumice stones and
smooth glass walls alike,
bubbles dancing to the surface,
hundreds of pearl balloons
popping of bliss.