Hidden Liquidity Poem by Katharina Schultens

Essentially this board exists without strict boundaries, yet
inconsequential rivulets escape through unseen rifts;
as if its edges had not been well sealed; its sides: all split;
where a fluid forms through seepage; an open possibility
of unintended self-accumulation, let out
as loneliness: reveals its oily presence drop by drop.

There must be a point where a single drop is destined
to become full fluid. Is this new liquidity a trade-off
with the fractional factor triggering the change? something
as small as a full-stop to hold us hovering, in limbo,

suggesting I desire some thing. I must take: this one glimpse
at my boots, bend, shiver, collapse; the eye must, for us,
stroke the supple suede on which in hindsight we may ascertain
desires. Although the price stays hid throughout the process.

To know cost stunts excitement in the game. Still you play
too. You dish out from this board indiscriminately, indifferently;
(while I crouch, crooked, underneath - posting up your magic rabbit skins)
neither can you tell its length, breadth, depth. All that gets sorted later.
Later, every body counts. The nature of the coins? irrelevant. Some one must pay.

Translated by J.O. Morgan