It’s dusk
Lustful grapevines curl around my ankles
And I’m thankful it’s wine season, the pickers should be around shortly to save me
And bathe me in last year’s crop to scare the grape vines into submission
It’s a decision they have to make
Do they care about a perfect stranger enough to waste
Roads of trucks of crates of bottles of red velvet
Or white sunshine
Or do they allow this ensnarement and turn a blind eye whilst I sink
While thinking; pondering the fertility of the soil under my feet
I’ll wait for the pickers, just to see how they view me
And in the meantime the vines are spinning yarns around me
Crawling up my skin, holding me tight while telling me bed time stories
Once upon a time there was a vineyard struck by a drought
Caused by unrelenting calm, and clear blue skies with no clouds
And they resisted, rationed their water between them,
And it seemed then that everything was fine
The crop was harvested and won best wine, but failed to mention how many vines
Died in the making of their own blood
Morbid and dry, a pinot noir fashioned out of pain and scars
And tears in flesh, not human flesh, but the flesh of the landscape
I didn't smile
But it did make me sleepy
I couldn't fight their grasp
Addicted to their emotions
I let them take me down into their fertile ocean
And when the pickers came to discern the source of the screaming
A new grape vine had sprouted and was teething