We gnaw at our global apple,
the starved worm of our curiosity
digging past roots of old knowledge,
spitting the seeds of ancient cities.

So vested in our investigations,
we dig through ancient Serdica
through stone stacked on bone,
emerging short of any coveted shore,
just shy of New Zealand.

But New Zealand was never new anyway,
just like here is always somebody’s there –
just a name for the end of a worm’s zealous tunnel.

So we’d surface to sink
into nonchalant waves.
That is, if we don’t first dissolve
into the mute molten metal,
the core of iron and nickel
pulling us inward –
the magnetic force of all burning questions,
a furious force
to melt all but hunger.