Odd Connection
By Deborah Holt Williams
Glenwood Springs
This poem is based on an actual event.
One fine day in Monterey Bay
the aquarium workers said “Whoa!”
The giant Pacific octopus
ate lunch and then needed to go.
Now animals vary in how they excrete.
Wombat poop is a cube!
But octopi roll with a tiny hole
in their siphon, their mantle’s short tube.
The aquarium staff was accustomed
to spaghetti-like strands of this poo.
What surprised them that day was the curious way
An anemone wanted some, too.
The two creatures swam off for hours,
each holding one end of the string.
One strand of feces uniting two species —
a weird and wonderful thing.
