Inside the Little Picture

In the kitchen, I’m fishing pieces of cork rot from the bottle’s throat
as if a little care and precision could cure the world of its decreptitude.

When the temperature hits 80, I switch to white because
while I have two rivers running in me, in summer I need three.

The third flows, as da Vinci says, like hair. Mine plaits, glacial,
blonde as Sauvignon, braid traipsing into whisker, turning drip to lurk.

White alleviates the heat, strikes a fire the size of a pearl,
summons slumber sweet as an infant’s arm, and that long.

Summer demands drastic measures.Heat on, I switch to diminish,
maneuvering a sieve to excavate the last cork bits, my rivers dwindling.

The bigger bits of world crumble outside without me, ice caps I can’t trap
in glass, in retreat beneath a ceiling fan invoking scope scope scope.