Begotten

Today my backyard is the sea—

its loam smells of salt and fish,

its metal chairs are cast nets, full

with the morning.

I float on this uncertainty:

the ground beneath my feet is water,

I am its fruit, and will return to the ground

in an everlasting baptism.

As I swim into this precarious life,

each stroke trails me as memory.

Reminds me that I am physical.

What part of me can claim

to be more than body, earth, water?

Be still.

The grass laps my feet and I swim on, unsure,

but whole.