Maria Josep Escrivà

Not long to go. 

We were very close. 

There is nothing left. 

Fran García 

Group of individuals 

inhabiting the sea floor, 

buried 

in substrate 

or moving across its surface. 

Benthic species, or they are called. 

With two fat eyes that afford them 

excellent vision, 

they can change in appearance and texture 

in accordance with whatever chance may bring. 

Why talk about octopuses when I want to talk about castaways? 

Men and women drifting on the sea 

like colourful buoys. 

In one year, two thousand six hundred buoys: 

as many neighbours as live in my town. 

There is no drift to bring them closer, sharp 

shadows that dream of another promised 

land and curse 

their luck, because, precisely today, 

a Levant wind blows. 

They possess excellent feelers 

and can taste whatever they happen to touch. 

They are carnivores, octopuses. They feed on fish, 

crustaceans, molluscs 

and drowned 

bodies: two thousand six hundred buoys, 

if they’re lucky enough to float. 

Most of them disappear forever, 

spectres stuffed in drains. 

With them the putrid earth is melting 

and is not waiting for them. 

Not long to go and there’s nothing left: 

glacial solitude, 

brackish burial, 

plankton of indifference. 

Instead of talking about the castaways now, 

I’ll talk of predators that devour octopuses 

with three hearts that devour 

drowned bodies and pump out 

blue blood, 

rich 

in copper. 

Sad human species, or so it is called. 

Not long to go. 

We were 

just around the corner 

and they’d given us the word: “we’re coming, 

we’re coming to fish you, before anything else 

be carrion 

on the sea floor.