POETRY
Pudding River Winery
The sommelier pours our samples and proclaims,
“You’ve got to be part poet to be a wine taster.”
Good news, I think. Most people
don’t credit poets much anymore.
She says we shouldn’t look at the descriptions
of the varieties before we sip them.
My first pinot noir tastes like
a late-night picnic in September.
I learn later it’s made with
Pommard grapes, from pomme,
French for apple, so it has something to do
with Eden and what we can’t return to.
“Reds get better with age,” she says, and all wine
continues to change even after it’s bottled.
I’m reminded of Communion,
sitting here shoulder to shoulder with my friends.
Pinot noir grapes are white on the inside.
Syrah grapes are purple all the way through.
They both taste sweet on the tongue, sweet as
that first sunset with your first love.
Southern drawl riffs of B. B. King’s guitar
curtain the small room and my tipsiness.
Their most expensive wine is supposed to taste
like spices and low-bush blueberries.
Red-headed finches wait just outside the door,
and the Monet clouds in the treetops haven’t budged.
The grape vines have just been cut back.
Prunings lie on the ground, biblical and definite.
I raise my glass to the river circling the back of the vineyard
like the sweeping hem on a long skirt.
Colette Tennant has three books of poetry: Commotion of Wings, Eden and After, and Sweet Gothic. Her book, Religion in The Handmaid’s Tale: a Brief Guide, was published in 2019 to coincide with Atwood’s publication of The Testaments. Her poems have won various awards and have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes along with being published in various journals, including Prairie Schooner, Rattle, Southern Poetry Review, and Poetry Ireland Review. Colette is an English and Humanities Professor who has also taught art in Great Britain, Germany, and Italy.
Next (Derek Jon Dickinson) >
< Previous (Betsy Howard)
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Pexels.com.
Heart of Flesh Literary Journal 