collects a pipette of ditch water from the clogged drain down the street
under a microscope he finds their silica shapes
spindle ribbon star zigzag barbell sand dollar and with the thinnest needle tip
arranges them into patterns micro mandalas
the largest single diatom is the width of a human hair
the smallest is barely two microns
so small we have nothing to compare it to
he presses his eyes to the microscope’s eyepiece
barely breathes hand steady as a mountain
steady as a monk bent over his work
of revealing to the rest of us lucent beauty
we would otherwise miss
and we must ask here must
if there is a god is that god a diatomist
and are we frail creatures of glass
and for whom are we arrayed and made beautiful
"Deep Sea Octopus..."
Dayna Patterson
Deep Sea Octopus Broods Her Eggs for Over Four and a Half Years
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in the freezing benthic deeps, she sits vigilant on her vertical nest: a rocky ledge
glued to the cliff face, eggs droop like tears of milk her body covers them all, a silky tent
she will not budge for 53 months no food, no rest
belly empty, except in her gut the crushed remains of gastropod shells
she blows her siphon over her clutch to keep it silt-free to bathe it in oxygen and guards against predators with spiraled fists, her chitinous beak
month by month she wastes away, her skin loosening, pale, as the eggs swell
semelparous, her one and only batch of offspring a merciless god demanding devotion ceaseless, utter
she gives herself to this senescence
○○
I remember years of monotony hours of slow-drowning in a miles-deep sea
two babies in two years, no food, no rest could make me feel restored, wishing my firstborn back in utero, safe in her balloon of urine, her practice cry mute, muffled by her little salt pond
broody, brooding
even then, I knew with stark clarity: far in the future, I’d ache for this—
bathing their bodies in the kitchen sink feed after feed after feed after nipple then bottle fingers then fork
even then, the deepest canyons were lit by the blue-green glow of our own life-light
○○○
little octopods wait in their translucent cases like patient aliens, testing boundaries with thready arms
when at last they hatch, they’re miniature adults, larvae with increased odds
cautious queen, longest brooder in the animal realm, she releases her tenuous hold on the rockface, on her lifeforce, slow-dissolving into marine snow at the exact moment that her young disperse in the current
○○○○
how to ride a bike
how to catch a bus
how to drive a car
15-year-old on the cusp of 16 tenses behind the wheel, (my god, this feels wrong) her small fists gripping 9 and 3 soon, a license and lipstick (when to cling) soon, crushes and campus tours (how to unlatch)
albums of school photos become time-lapse flip books— in a sliver, kindergarten baby-softness sluffs away to world-wise sophomore
14-year-old nearly 15 drops her sleep-frowzy head on my lap, and I trace her brow ridges, jawbone, the bridge of her nose, (we share 23 chromosomes) rub the unpierced lobes of each ear, rake my fingers through her pink hair, (I loosen, I pale) recall
160 egg-pearls burst, the cliff littered with milk-white shreds, wisping like ghost-skin
Dayna Patterson is the author of Our Lady of Thread (forthcoming, 2027), O Lady, Speak Again (2023), and If Mother Braids a Waterfall (2020), all from Signature Books. She collaborated with Susan Alexander, Luther Allen, Jennifer Bullis, and Bruce Beasley to produce a poetry collection of interwoven poems, A Spiritual Thread (Other Mind Press, 2024). She received the Association for Mormon Letters Poetry Award, and two of her poems appear in Best Spiritual Literature, 2023. daynapatterson.com
