Four lines, no punctuation, not a single capital letter: Dave Bonta's "Riverine" looks as though it has been poured rather than written. The title is an adjective meaning "of or like a river," and the poem never says "I am a river." Instead it tries on the river's qualities one by one, as a speaker might try on a coat. Its central idea seems to be that belonging to a place can feel like travel, and that fully inhabiting a landscape means taking on its manner of being, including its blurred edges and fading light.
The first line gives the most surprising image: "in the wool of the river." Rivers are usually silver, glassy or muddy, so wool is an odd word for one. It suggests something dense, warm and slightly rough, a fleece you could sink into. Judging by the imagery, the speaker might be picturing mist, thick current or a river's fuzzy surface under certain light, but the poem doesn't say, and the vagueness helps. Wool is also something we wear, so the line turns the river from scenery into clothing. The speaker is not beside the water but wrapped in it.
Next comes "I should be profuse." The word "should" can mean "ought to be" or "would naturally be," and the poem leaves both readings open. "Profuse" comes from a Latin verb meaning "to pour forth," which suits a river, since to be profuse is to flow over, to give more than is needed. It also describes a person who gushes with thanks or apologies. So the speaker is either obliged to overflow or invited to, and either way the self is being asked to loosen and spill.
The third line is a small paradox: "journey anywhere at home." There is no comma or conjunction between "profuse" and "journey," so the sentence slips from one idea into the next as water slips past a bank. The line makes sense only if home is a river. A river stays in its bed and is never still, so the speaker can travel without leaving. The paradox is gentle rather than showy, and it makes the idea of home feel larger and less fixed. The speaker doesn't need to go elsewhere to find the world.
The poem's sound supports this. There is no end rhyme, but "wool" and "should" share a soft, rounded vowel, and the lines are linked by assonance and by the hushed "sh" of "should," "profuse" and "duskish." The line lengths run roughly seven syllables, five, seven, then four. The first three lines have a loose, lilting rhythm, with "journey anywhere at home" falling into an easy three-beat roll. The last line contracts and slows. "Appear duskish" has two heavy stresses side by side, "-pear" and "dusk," so the voice has to linger on them before the poem stops. With no full stop to close it, the poem trails off more than it ends.
That last line is the most inventive. "Duskish" is not a standard word, and the casual suffix "-ish" makes it hedge: not dusk itself, but something near it. The verb "appear" matters too. The speaker doesn't become dim but appears dim, as one might look in poor light, or as a figure emerges from shadow. Dusk is a threshold between day and night, and it softens outlines in the way wool softens a surface. So the poem ends with a self blurred at the edges, partly visible, partly absorbed into the water's evening colour.
What makes the poem worth reading is how much it does in so little space. Without explaining or arguing, it moves from an image (wool), through a condition (profusion) and a paradox (travelling at home), to a quiet vanishing (dusk), and the sequence mirrors a river's own path from source to dissolving. A student might notice that the poem never describes the river in any measurable way. It gives no width, colour or sound, only textures and states of being. The river is felt from inside, and that fits the title, which asks us to read the speaker as riverine too, shaped by the water and flowing in unfinished lines.