In just a few lines, the speaker admits to a strong pull toward a nearby waterway. It is close enough to touch, yet the wanting stays intense. The water seems to stand for something larger than a place: the speaker wants it "to open the whole / of me to me," as if being near it could make them fully known to themselves. That odd phrasing, with "me" repeated at both ends, suggests a self that is somehow closed off and needs a way in.
The last lines turn toward belonging. Something "not called home" becomes "back home," so a place that never carried that name now feels like it. The poem doesn't say how this change happens, which leaves it quiet and open. The mood is tender and searching, with a calm kind of yearning. The title, "Blotter," hints at something that soaks things up, and the poem itself feels absorbent in that way, taking in a place until it becomes part of who the speaker is.