And in the grapevine-
made to be the wine that ages.

We don't celebrate its birthday

But are we any different,
thinking we can stay forever young?
A bottle too ages by the years;
Can we all not grow in maturity?

Take a sip of that.

there were pizza and grapes on the counter
i couldn't choose which one to eat

i know pizza is bad for me, but i like it
and i know grapes are better for me, but i prefer pizza

so, i went with the pizza.

and now, im hurt.

A vintner of aged leaves in the wine-press of the sun,
Thin-skinned like the lucent grapes from the vine-runs
Of the island trellises and teal-cordoned waves, lowest slung
Fruit-laden bough of sky, Sicily, whose ateliers of rolled cigarettes
And uprolled sleeves like tides tease smoke into studio paints,
The black apple wine of storm made into mouthfuls of pulp rain,
Before the sunrise is gathered again in fishing nets and crab pots,
The coastal towns with their salted roofs of pied clay and pigeons
Along the lava stone streets, and night from the chanteuse of Egypt,
Singing her coral to heron, as when her bird-like barefooted slaves
Left tracks across Old Kingdom wastes, so this dreaming old man
Leaves his wrinkles to these grapes and across the sand-island pillow,
Asleep with his fathers, hay-hauling peasants of wandering darkness.

I find the allure of burgundy hues,
          not one for the corpse of grapes,

                                                              being  

squeezed of every essence of life...

But the allure haemorrhaging forth..

I could be buried within this collage of
                                                      elegance.
­
And when I dig myself from it,
                      
I would  paint,
  
                                seeing  a picture of vigour.



Not the outline that others see ,
                                                when
                its chalk lined on the canvass.

Its not deceased,

                           this moment has only just breathed.

We sunk into barrels that smelled
almost too strongly of wine
that was almost too old. The grapes
they were made of sat squished
between our toes.
We weren’t wrong anymore.
Nobody was wrong anymore
and it was being right
in the thick of it that made us so strong.
Our car used to be blue, we think.
It’s turned into a sickly orange
but at least it matches the sky.
We look for pictures in the cloudy
bumps of the metal.
There’s never anything left in the stores
except Scrub Daddy brand sponges
and glimpses of Mr. Clean’s face.
Nobody needs to bleach their bathtub anymore.
They’re all yellow. We try to guess
what kind of fruit lies beneath that
shivering hunk of mold.
I’d always wondered if something that was burnt
could burn more. “I think that
it depends on how burnt it got the first time,”
you say as you peel off the charred top layer,
“and on how you try to shake it off.”
We’re both nodding as the minnows
nip our toes, and prove to us that maybe
we aren’t the only ones with too many mouths.