Sommelier

By Lucy Jones

 Sometimes I can still feel the 
 pulse of the crystal wineglass sloshing 
 in my chest, my liquid heartbeat. 
 It swirls in a circular rhythm 
 like cloudy water slipping into the drain. 
 Brown blood-water streams like spoiled watercolors; 
 it always stains my eyes after I wring it 
 out of my spotted sheets monthly. When you said, 
 “This is a great red. Really oaky,” and wafted it, 
 I should have known then. Wines don’t taste 
 like trees. Besides, that wine is fucking 
 older than you are. But when you handed me the glass 
 and smiled, I felt your hand reach through the foliage 
 of my ribcage. You grabbed my fermented 
 heart-glass by its stem, and crushed it. 
 The wine spilled out like salt over blushing; it shone 
 over a thousand glinting shards. 
 They smirked up at me, a quilt of broken glass 
 sewn into your smile-pattern. But don’t try 
 to curl up with it, pulling it in a starry sheet 
 to your chin. I tried that, and you 
 didn’t warm me up. You cut me all to ribbons; 
 your fingers snapped me off halfway. 
 I was a fractured glass bowl, all spilled 
 out. I was the wine you sniffed frowning and said was 
 “no good-- it’s from a bad year.” 
 I used to want 
 to be the glass you held in your hand; to feel you 
 swirling me and wafting me before 
 tasting. Now I don’t believe in bad years.