Michaels Wine

by Sandra Alcosser
     Winter again and we want
     the same nocturnal rocking，
     watching cedar spit
     and sketch its leafy flames，
     our rooms steamy with garlic
     and greasy harvest stew.
     Outside frosted windows
     claw marks on yellow pine，
     Venus wobbling in the sky，
     the whole valley a glare of ice.
     We gather in the kitchen
     to make jam from damsons
     and blue Italian prunes，
     last fruit of the orchard，
     sweetest after frost， frothy bushels
     steeping in flecked enamel pots.
     Michael， our neighbor，
     decants black cherry wine，
     fruit he ground two years ago，
     bound with sugar， then racked
     and racked again. It's young and dry.
     We toast ourselves， our safety，
     time the brandied savory
     of late November.
     I killed a man this day last year，
     says Michael， while you were away.
     Coming home from town alone，
     you know the place in Lolo where the road
     curves， where the herd of horses got loose
     New Year's Eve， skidded around
     white-eyed， cars sliding into them？
     Didn't see the man until my windshield broke.
     Could have been any one of us.
     Twenty-nine years old， half-drunk，
     half-frozen. Red and black hunting jacket.
     Lucky I was sober. We stand there
     plum-stained as Michael's face
     fractures into tics and lines.
     He strokes his wine red beard.
     Michael with no family，
     gentle farmer's hands， tilts the bottle，
     pours a round， as if to toast.
     It was so cold， he says，
     that when it was over，
     he swirls the distilled cherries
     under a green lamp， there was less
     blood on the pavement than you see
     this moment in my glass.