Been thinking a lot about gills,

how this flesh fringe can take in
water and air, how you can

catch a fish by tickling it
under its belly wearing silk

stockings on your hands.
How you can hold a fish

gently in the current’s stream, 
revive it

as if it were a lover
needing stroking, needing

the brush of lips over glazed skin.
What is it we do

when we take a fish or sip,
pluck an apple, kill a man

or beast? Are we stopping or continuing
an endless flow

whose movement is toward
home or origin, whatever that may be,

whatever that may be, home,
beginning, but what or where is this?

Was it a cloud that formed,
let the first pure diamond

drop from its wet womb? Was it
first the puddle evaporating

in billion years’ young sun? 
Is this why

everything keeps moving, why
the circle within the circle

within the circle turns?
Because there is no soil

worth dying for (it’ll
have us soon enough). We

are mostly water and all water
is a thing that seeks a home but has no home

except that carved in earth by seeking.