At Last We Reach the Floor

We do this as we can’t not
Do it—it’s wrong to say we
Do it since we can. We don’t.

We are some waves near the edge
Of cliffs, of life, of land, but
We’re not forms of bugs or germs.

A word is not the same as
A phage, which is built with genes
Like all life’s great and small things.

Words, names, signs, semes—codes that mean
But don’t, can’t mean with no lives
To know us don’t worm through guts,

Don’t code for our hosts, aren’t found
In most life forms. Far from it.
And yet we do spin in hosts,

And if their lives are our shores,
We are what cuts up their coasts
To life’s floors. Know this? Know us.