The octopuses in their plastic tub
darken the cold seawater they stew in
with expectorations of ink. They rub
against each other like lazy noodles.
One, lucky to be topmost in the soup,
sees the purple urchins packed tight with ice
and writhes more urgently as if it could
taste in its imagination the sweet
red roe spilling from the split-open shell.
That’s the one I point out to the monger:
Give me the dreamer. Let him be dreaming
of stalking the sweet roe over the coral
when I drop him boneless into the pot
so the salt of dreaming flavors the meal.

“Fish Market” by Frans Snyders, 1618, Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia