The Wine Cork

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A modern fable in verse. Wise Monkey Wrought scroll N.010, "The Wine Cork." The cork held the wine for nineteen years and was famous for about a second and a half. A cork lay snug in glass and dark, a guardian of a ripening red. It held the years without remark, a quiet seal, a patient head. For nineteen years it kept the trust, it held the vintage, year on year. It let no air, it let no dust, it guarded what would reappear. The evening came. The hands arrived. The screw went in, the pull began. The cork, for which the wine had thrived, shot loose, its fifteen minutes ran. The wine was poured, admired, discussed. The cork rolled off beneath a chair. Its lifetime's work, its sacred trust, forgotten by the second pair. Nineteen years of holding. One pop of glory. The cork would do it all again.