octopus shirt 

i plan to wear this into the afterlife.
barefoot & threadbare. 
i found the shirt on a june evening.
all summer i lived in the guts of
my vacant college dorm. the shirt, like
a snakeskin, lay in the middle 
of the common room the day after
everyone else had left. blue & soft. 
the image of an octopus 
printed across the chest. 
when i put it on i went all ocean.
my eyes, brimming with schools of fish.
i felt the tentacles & the beak. i believed
in depths greater than the drain.
i have slept in the shirt for years now.
it is a ritual in meeting my ghosts.
slipping it on is a tether
into the skin i have lost & the skin
i have grown. soft as spring magnolia fingers.
all the buds christmas-lighting.
i used to wonder if i might be able
to find the shirt's old owner. if maybe
i could fly it like a flag above
my head until its mother returned.
would she weep? if she wore the shirt
could she feel all my grottos 
& my deep night hungers? i think it is
too late now. now the shirt is mine.
still, each night i crawl inside the octopus.
we swim. trade species. draw pictures 
of god. mine is a broken window.
the octopus just draws the sun.