The Liquid Inside

His eyes were more corks than eyes

and he felt that when he would be corked

he would at last not only see

but also find a liquid inside

a liquid almost a syrup,

slow-crawling up and down his sides

as he walked, as he leaned,

as he jumped, the liquid would move too

creepingly along his body’s chambers.



It was a passionless liquid,

it could be spilled now any moment

with open eyes it could be tipped out

and left spattered along the walkways

to the chagrin, surprise, dismay

of other passersby; their feet

would probably stick to it,

they would probably curse the man

who spilled his juices everywhere,

this poor man who did not comprehend

the empathy of the others,

for he was unsure whether they contained

a liquid of their own;

he couldn’t know for they were still stopped up,

the corks were still in their sockets

and, as he used to, they go about days

not seeing and not thinking about liquid

inside their very bodies,

such a strange liquid

whose very flowing defies meaning.



But he would be careful not to spill;

he would walk with his head tilted back

to the sky most of the time,

unless it were imperative to bend over,

in which case he would develop a maneuver

of the head that kept it contained,

kept it from falling out his eyes—

he would have many tricks of this kind

to keep the liquid behind the shell

of his body, not wanting to disturb

his friends, his family, or strangers.



As he pretended to look out

onto the yard after a fresh rain,

the unseen droplets sparkling

on the unseen green,

lush and abundant after the downpour,

he pondered corking himself,

just to see and to see

what is on the other side,

if his sensation that morning was correct

of having inside him a turning,

a slow-turning heavy liquid;

but as he would try prying at the corks

there was an attack on his insides

of terrible spikes from the outside,

there was a swooshing noise inside

and the man, holding his dripping eye

became dizzy and turned violently,

sputtering from his mouth and eyes,

then from his ears too, as he collapsed

onto the floor, crashing and splattering

like a broken, fine, priceless

bottle of wine.