Porifera

He locked the doors.  He had to.  He needed to be alone when he felt this good.  No one could keep up with him.  The relief.  The rush, soaking in it, air in his lungs forever.  Until it waned.  He wanted no one leaning over him after he hit the floor.

Porifera is the name of a phylum that encompasses more than 5,000 species of sponges. The fossil record offers evidence for the existence of sponges in the Cryogenian period 635 to 720 million years ago.

Book III of Vitruvius’s ten-volume De Architectura provided inspiration for Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man drawing.

Marble is not alike in all countries.

—Vitruvius

Porifera

Sprouting
even from your broken
bits, no brain, no heart,
no stomach,
lacking symmetry,
an absorbing earth
welcoming seeds,
your pocked, porous
architecture
teases crumbs
from the sad
perpetuity of tides.

Soft, permeable,
you hold water,

but not like a glass
or bucket
with their stuck-at-O
rigidity.

What if you had served
as blueprint,
dabbing wounds,
soothing fevers,
wetting lips
at the end?