Good evening.
Open
the bottle.
Pour the contents down the drain.
Wash the label off with
hot water.
Admire
the naked
bottle's
classic lines.
It was the label with its garish pronouncements
that conferred the illusory status
of product on it.
Bottles have looked like this one
for thousands of years.
All descended from the same platonic ideal bottle in heaven.
Whistling tunelessly,
you take the bottle to your workshop.
Little chef is waiting beside your lade.
Getting the ship in the bottle
without damaging the masts and rigging
takes the rest of the day.
You work like a sergeant
with tweezers.
And probes with long beaked scissors.
Perspiration blinds you at several
critical moments.
But finally,
as evening falls on the ruined city outside your bunker,
the ship is securely
lodged in its bulbous vitrine.
Bullets fill
its gesso stiffened sails.
You reward yourself
with some well-earned alphabet soup.
You drink it cold
from the can to save time.
The night is lit by artillery fire.
Jets shriek overhead.
You zip yourself into your black catsuit.
Bulletproof vest.
And fill
the bottle with petrol.
Drowning the ship.
You stuff a rag.
In the neck.
And add the bottle to the dozen in your haversack.
The sound of small arms fire.
The bottles bouncing in your bag.
Tentenabulate.
Magic bells.
Hardware.
It was cold on the street.
When I couldn't stand it anymore.
I went into the hardware store and
pretended to look at the wall display.
A customer asked a clerk in a blue smock,
have you got a screwdriver with a range of different size heads?
I saw as he said it.
I saw the thing
in my imagination.
It's you, it's you.
It's you.
This particular design problem.
When the clerk held up the actual item for approval,
I peered over the customer's face.
I was dazzled by the ingenuity of the design.
The various heads all fit neatly into the
hardware door.
Something I've never thought of in a million years.
I'll take it,
said
the customer.
A massive individual who stood between the clerk and me like a wall.
Me too,
I piped.
Standing on tiptoe to catch the
clerk's eye as he rang the purchase up.
He nodded
externally.
Suddenly came flying to me with soft,
winking laughter.
I had time to reflect
on how fabulous the world was
with such marvels in it.
It was
no use haggling with the clerk,
I could see that at a glance.
I went back out onto the
street
determined to raise the extra $9.80 I needed to acquire
the screwdriver.