cuttlefish REM sleep

fill body with invisible color
oh glory grey scale, turn
inside out red & get black
the cuttlefish changes textures 
& shades but only sees in black/white
i'm going to tell her about
all of the prisms ringing 
on her skin, outstretch 
my arms till i have only
three of them, like her, the blue
water not blue but clear 
thick with sound waves
thick with animal skins
who wouldn't want to know
what it's like to sleep in the body
of each fish & shark
& octopus & cuttlefish?
i'm here chewing mollusk shells 
till all the bones 
inside me fuse like hers,
the one long bone inside
the cuttlefish often washes
up on shore, used to sharpen 
knives, i'll pull mine
out through my mouth &
use it to sharpen the paring
knives in my mother's kitchen,
i'll show her my new beak 
& my new undulating eyes,
turned tie dye as i sleep
in the sink with the dishes,
when cuttlefish enter REM sleep
they pulse with rainbow waves
& patterns flickering across
their skin, 
watercolor projector screen skin
maybe inside
they can know their colors,
invent new words for 
red & purple & orange, maybe
naming them after other cuttlefish 
who they once enjoyed
the company of
in the sink i think how 
i would name yellow after you
& purple after my mother
& maybe name red after myself
i stand there, on 
a sandy beach, picking 
cuttlefish bones off the shore
& slipping them into a backpack
at home i'll hide them
in case i need to sharpen
a knife or re-teach hardness
to my bones, 
swallowing one
all my skin turning grey 
then the walls of the house 
& you even though you're
far away
i wanted this 
for us