OK, another one of those stories my friend told me.
You know how you're never supposed to say that?
You're never supposed to say, this came from real life.
But it's funny, he's a concrete framer.
And after he told me this story I--
from the end, from the last gesture
I wanted to write the poem for him, and around him.
And I did.
And then I thought, well, I don't want to show this to him.
I don't know if this is a good thing to show to him
or not, because of what happened.
And then when it came out and it's published in The Yale
Review and I gave him a copy--
he would come to readings, and he'd
say Sandra, read my poem, Sandra, read my poem,
and I'd say--
I feel-- I don't know, Michael.
So I gave him a copy, and it was real interesting because--
you'll see why when you hear the story.
He then had me order 25 copies which he gave to each person
in his family.
And I know when I was down in Brazil I
heard people talk a lot more about the writer
as a cabinet maker, the person who kind of nails these things
together, puts them together.
And I think of this more in that context.
"Michael's Wine."
Michael is a-- well, he's a winemaker.
You'll guess that.
"Winter again.
And we want it to be the same nocturnal rocking
watching the cedar spit and sketch its leafy flames,
our rooms steamy with garlic and greasy harvest stew.
Outside the frosted windows claw marks high on yellow pine,
Venus brilliant in the sky, the whole valley a glare of ice.
We gather in the kitchen to make jam
from damsons and blue Italian prunes,
the last fruit of the orchard sweetest
after frost, frothy bushels of them 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 branded 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?
I didn't see the man until my windshield broke.
Could have been any one of us.
29 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 beard.
Michael, with no family and gentle framer's hands,
tilts the bottle and pours a round as if to toast.
'It was so cold,' he says, 'that when it was over,' he swirls
the distilled cherries under the green lamp,
'there was less blood on the pavement than you see this
moment in my glass.'"