Life is no longer to be found 

where we found it before. 

In the walk-in freezer out back of a seafood restaurant,

in imported sand from Bristol, U.K,

or the People’s Free State of 10am. 

In the sweat of a dough-roller on Saturday morning,

in the purple sleep of a dead watch, 

or the fourth floor room where an indoor gardener

once proposed to a nameless stranger. 

In the stony throat of the sea, 

in Paekākāriki Where The Cheese Is Squeaky,

or in the tail dust of the fastest bad dream. 

It is to be found many places in-between,

and some on top of. 

Behind the couch where previously we came up dry,

in the thing that glows at the bottom of the well, and

the gasp of a house plant in cold water. In the

unpublished drafts of the human genome, in the

spore of our greatest idea, 

and at the centre of the space 

we hold between us. 

In a white room, 

somewhere behind the wind, where we

change sheets, 

title a tune, 

remember bread, 

warm our backs, 

love a little, 

know salad spoons, 

forget entropy, 

order onion, 

grow hair, 

sail pencils, 

invest in skin, 

weave days. 

Life is to be found 

here, 

where the ocean is rising 

only because it isn’t full yet.