“Wine Harvest” by Kevin O’Shea, Galway

topic: 9/11 medium: TEXT

as submitted for the “9/11” Open Call

We found a dish of crumble and a bottle of wine
unlabeled on an outside table.
After unpacking, we toasted our benefactor
as the sunset burst on long drills of lavender.

Deaf to the harmony of wily old reds
and showing bias to neither grape nor vintage
we oiled ourselves well at every crossroads Chateau
and every crepe-filled market.

Eating juicy pears in the gentle dust beneath roadside vines
we dreamed of our own gite by the Dordogne,
checked prices in the window of Agence Eleanor
but shook our heads with a smile at the sums.

Late for Tuesday dinner in Ste Foy La Grande
closed French doors forced us upstairs
to a picture menu. We picked green chicken curry,
for wine, stuck with beer.

Our only fellow diner wore thick marmalade braids
like a late-night bongo player on Shop Street.
Hearing us order he said “Did you see
they’re flying planes into skyscrapers in the States?”