Win-Win
By Ange Mlinko
If an orchidophage’s tastebud magnified
resembles an orchid
so my buds indubitably mimic pricking ice cream cones.
Love, little by little it dawned on us the artisanal
ice cream, especially the prizewinning caramel,
would be out of our reach,
like the previous Friday of a Sunday leaving the beach,
in the meltdown.
When you gasp at the soundfile of cymbals
—“that knitting needle sound”—through your headphones it kindles
an inkling that in the bongo-playing
you can hear the wedding ring,
ting ting in the liquescence.
When you hear the sound you may smile
to think of the ones and zeros of that soundfile
resembling sticks and drumheads,
or knitting needles and drumheads
as the beat gets molten.
When things get molten you may think of a fire
made up of a million little matchfires
rendering a house on the Sound
—belonging to ex-employers—a bit of char on the ground
as the regrettable outcome of a meltdown.
A thousand hotheads make a Sarkozy:
at the sight of their BMW in a car cozy
a thousand swans make a Sigolène
purring win-win.
The Sound is statistical, like the meltdown.
The holes in your socks and the follicles in your leg
are pixelated as a JPEG.
My tastebuds resemble microscopic glasses of gin now, now’s
the time to shake and shiver like a maraca in this house.
The many kinds of dissolution.
Well, birds happen forth from feeders like swinging pagodas
against snow, as
the meltdown goes on, a dump of rock salt.
We’ll soon be signatories by default.
Crystals of sodium chloride
are made of smaller crystals of sodium chloride.
Let them know their House
is made up of many other people’s houses, magnified.
Source: Poetry (June 2009)