We Are All Waters

There is no ‘you’ or ‘I’ Except that you choose to call the fat clouds a name and make them feel like overlords upon the others. And, there is neither ‘you’ nor ‘I’ when we collect in droplets into rain and percolate the crevices between rocks and questions. The free flowing water you rinse your feet in Collects the geography of the places you’ve been to That the same water you now wash your hands with, is what You once called ‘dirty’ and fed to the gutters of nevermore. There is no ‘you’ or ‘I’, save ‘we’ We, driblets of water Garnering into puddles, Some, redeemed in pots of human bellies. And, there is neither ‘you’ nor ‘I’ Little dribs charged with pain, break out As saline rain, bouncing off troubled eyes, A cesspool of wails in the offing. And some others, not ‘you’, not ‘I’ Distraught to meet this uncertain world Are lagged in rocks, trapped prisoners. We are all waters, variously hued To boil in teapots and warm the mien of takers And a few, crystallized into heart-shaped cubes, Are nursed between the parched tongues of lovers. Loin waters all! Congealed over time Sneaked into places like shy rivers Collecting genetic snapshots of their bearers Then those ones frozen by fear, iceberg-solid Make the routes of our ideas unpassable A few, like calm ponds Unperturbed by gravity and noise Undress before the caress of the setting sun We all are waters, Not you, not I, but we; streaming In endless pursuit on the surface While selfsame dispatch, gather like roots undersea. **previously published in Sentinel Quarterly Review