Season of the Grape

 

You swagger and return a blank smile
To my conversation
All my words have washed off you
I read your face.
I see the signs.
I raise my own glass to my lips.

Burgundy of the drink turns brown
Blood curdled in my goblet
Sweetness turns back
And flees into a rancid bitter
Taste on my tongue
I fling out the liquid and watch
The arc of wine rise through the air
Before settling into a pool on the floor

You’ve slumped. Call of the drink is stronger
Than the call of all the loves
You have gathered.
No person remains, no feeling recalled
Only the distant insistence
Of the glass and the liquid

A beckoning never answered completely
Glass upon glass emptied on the call
Yet never fulfilled.
Wine whips once more
And you lift yet another glass

I watch as it brings you closer
To the Grape…and me,
I’m flung farther each gulp you take
Farther from my glass
Farther from you.