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Judson Evans

Cartesian Diver

No one knows the origin of the device or its name. Some claim Descartes was not the whiz kid, others attribute the trick to Archimedes. There is dissent even as to the physical laws at issue, whether Boyle's Law of Gas or Pascal's Principle...project for a Science Fair...system grasping system like a sphincter, hot soapy water in the sink dissolving glue from a half-gallon Pepsi bottle. Then a dropper from the clotted Mercurochrome—tiny bathysphere...Raquel Welch in a skin tight diving suit, little loves, little hydraulic vehicles in the blood and bits of label, a red cursive P on the back of a wrist...the red shift of fingerprints...a bubble pearling tighter as the dropper is squeezed, tiny craft dreadnaughting down...and Diotima, ex-hetaira, so knowing in the drift, in the blue trade of ions across the membrane, such a spate of shocked traffic, form to ephemera, you want to pause, you want to balk, to tide yourself over...to cup the water in the kylix of the hands...

leaking tap
the cling of each
drop
around the drain

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