MATHIAS SVALINA

A Blueprint of Surface Tension

You break the oil skin on the balsamic
with a hunk of bread ripped from the loaf:
a baked brown rosemary leaf falls to the floor.
You squeeze the bosc pear, slice the ripe orange
& pull new potatoes from the plastic bag
hung taut & shuddering from your hand. Red skin
flakes into the parsley on the countertop where I chop garlic
for the crimini and chanterelle. The heat of the open oven door
sugars the room with caramelized garlic & lemon
as leaves crack outside on the wooden deck.

I smell the oil of orange skin on your fingertips
as I kiss your palm. Suppose we were in love.
Suppose we were water bugs riding the tension,
our long legs the lines of the elevation sketch
scrawled on a napkin with the last drops of wine. We press
the skin of water with our back legs, then grip
our curled ripples with our front legs to push forward.
We feed on everything, & never fall into the current:
glide among dead leaves & stones that breach the water.