The Sponge.(Poem)

 
   Each cold, wet, Pacific-Rim 
   Spring, when we saw the one movie 
   we saw, each vernal equinox, was it 
   comforting to recognize 
   the sponge, say, did I feel, at all, I was 
   related to it--if you went back far enough through the 
   furred predators with breasts, back through the 
   almost liquid armadillo inside 
   its fanned purse of self, 
   back before the sexually mating 
   tiger lilies, back near the poor 
   worms, you would find our porous ancestor 
   groping, soaking, not Roman, just sopping 
   along, breathing food, did I ever 
   want, as a child, to wave to the sponge 
   like a distant friend, when I saw it again, as I 
   sat beside my mom, her whole 
   head wet with that vinegar smell 
   she had at that movie. Did it, at all, 
   soothe me to be there in that theater peace 
   ...