Home-Made Wine

HOME-MADE WINE

 

 

The grapes arrived from Italy

in crates made of splintered spruce.

They nestled together like immigrants in steerage.

Stacked and semi-conscious in the dank recesses

of my grandfather’s cellar,

they awaited the sunlight,

not dead but dormant.

 

And when their time came,

the crates were carried into the garden

where we stood waiting in an eager circle.

Emptied into tubs, they tumbled out

in a cascade of liberated souls.

 

I heard them laughing in delight

as they struck against the metal

and lay inertly glistening in the sun,

happy to shed their skins

in sacrifice for the family wine.

 

We crushed them with cruel but loving hands,

We smashed them with savage but loving feet,

And their blood flowed darkly in the blazing sun.