Who ever knew of a practice called tear-letting? Who knew the salt in these glands softened the brittle surface of M. Svevo’s cheeks or who knew that with the help of violent blows from the wind, these tiny grains helped efface the fort he built around his bronzed skin? How do you save with what startled in the first place?
And so M. Svevo cried. He first cried without recess, and he didn’t even bother to move his stone legs to grab a napkin on the kitchen counter three feet away. His tears spilled everywhere, and it’s a shame he didn’t shed them into glass pints sooner. He would have had many multicolored glass bottles and his sadness would have assumed an art form, though really, this man cried like no other. He sometimes cried silently and sometimes so much, his skin gave the impression of being jaundiced. He spilled onto his milk and cereal, on his maroon polo, on old silverware, on the tablecloth linens. When he lied down on his couch, his tears ran and formed pools in his ears, and when he got back up again, they formed liked strands of DNA down his face. It was quite beautiful. When he had begun bottling his tears, he saved the bottles and arranged them on the kitchen table. Some of the glass was transparent, some mauve, and some were green beer bottles. One day one of these beer bottles broke and his tears poured out to the carpet like bread crumbs, as if to leave a trail leading one to wherever M. Svevo went. Bread crumbs and sea glass. M. Svevo became a portable ocean, if it ever were possible, contained yet vast.
