Vintage

Vintage

In the quiet and the dark

is what makes it, and don’t forget

time, the most of it the way

we leave everything

bottled and tipped to

our shoulders on the shelf

(so the cork will slide

come an opening time)

and turn off the lights

to wait for it to become

aged.  Though tell me this

has not gone and done and

borne all the doing alone, begun

in the sod it was sunk to

off in the hills and along

the coast while the sun

comes and goes

and the moon too.  Under

such a future I wonder

if we have to be afraid

of the soft and clotted 

unilluminated mud 

we're shoved and 

shouldered-into-:

us-dark that is everything

we crawl inside to take to being

rooted up, plucked, peeled

and crushed and sucked up

to be soaked over something

sweeter something on the hinge

of bitter, with a tooth to it,

made after years of waiting

to rest in the cup

of the right tongue, the bouquet

rising up to that one nose

that can say yes or no

to more of such dark or

finally, being bought for

as much

the dust on the bottle,

brought out and poured.