after darwin
We stripped:
shrugged off accordion fins, our sliver
of mail, spat salt bilge, grew lungs, fingers,
an opposable thumb.
When our knuckles
left the ground, we learned to punch
above our weight, found fire,
bronze, iron, words.
We mapped stars,
turned shipbuilders, plotted worlds,
traded flesh. We dreamed in blueprints,
made towns and kings.
Our thoughts
were sprockets and cogs; we built dams,
canals, mined new gods: coal, oil, silicon,
we chipped the planet.
And on Sundays
when there was nothing left to do,
we took to rowing boats, with lures and bait,
spent afternoons fishing the food chain.
Published in Magma 39