In the cellar,

greenglass vessels lean

          against one another,

  their shoulders dustpadded,

       throats sealed tight.

 

Some wait decades,

stoppered against the tremor of hands

that might one day twist them open.

 

Others burst early,

foam rushing into the air

as if silence itself were unbearable.

 

Life, too, is a rack of bottles—

some forgotten in the corner,

               labels blurred,

contents thickening into memory.

 

Others are restless,

pressing against their corks,

                      uncontainable,

a fizz that refuses to be archived.

 

                                         And we—

      we are the corkscrews,

spiralling into the grain of our days,

levering against the stubborn seal,

  wondering whether release

                                  is celebration,

    or just another form of spilling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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