My Daughter showed me a cork
from a previous bottle of wine
BERINGER printed neatly
along its length
the cork intact except
for the wound at the top
and bottom where
the corkscrew did its work
and immediately my mind
jumped as it does
to that episode of Columbo
where Peter Falk trapped
the murderous poisoner
because there were two
puncture marks
Louis Jourdan who made
a treacherously suave
villain and I remember
Frank Langella
an actor villain of similar presence
as Dracula
climbing the outside wall
getting terrifyingly closer
to his victim
and the audience
which led me to
The Twelve Chairs
when I first noticed him
and was impressed
and I caught my breath
and said to myself,
“You got all that from a cork?”