The grapes are heaped
in a glass bowl, green,
red and bruised purple
clustered in bundles,
languorous over the lip,
their powdery patina
like grandmother's jewels.

If they could talk, they'd speak
the language of earth's hot star,
of poisons, calloused hands
plucking from vines the globed
unfermented beauty trucked
to markets, the exhausted tale
of too-brief lives.

Just yesterday they seem
to have shrunk, their fine skins
withered, losing luminosity,
still embracing each other
in their last hours, sweeter
than sweet becoming rot,
greener than grass, deeper
than the crimson sky
presaging the storm.

The sky is falling in
on vineyards, bent backs,
shacks and trailer parks
where pickers sleep on shelves
and children never learn to read.

In an air-conditioned bar,
we linger over garnet goblets,
observing our own wrinkled skins,
our intimate selves gathered together
for the last sip of wine.