Rustum Kozain
1. The grape picker
Her calves hard as stumps
of vine
an old woman heaves a
basket
like a hump to her back
and hacks
a pearl of phlegm from
her throat.
Daybreak. She yearns to
taste
that warm and sweet
sulphuric wine
and dreams of empty rows
of vine:
one tot for each tenth
load of grapes.
But the rows hang full
and wait.
One foot in front of
another
she stoops, bends knees
and waist.
Soon, her brown and
stick-gnarled arms
alternate to pluck and
toss
pluck and toss fat grapes
from vine to back-borne
basket:
her limbs akimbo, like
broken swastikas,
like vine barbing the
still, persistent land.
2. Wine’s estate
The early sun bloats the
long drop to such glut
odours clamour over the
bluebottles’ buzz.
In the distance, a
slit-eyed cock tries to crow
chokes on a crackling
phrase, heaves for air.
At ten, the sun slows,
hangs just there
like God’s diamond brooch
to robes thinned by wear.
Under her fifth basket of
grapes, the woman
bends so low over
shrivelling leaf
she hears her sweat seep
into the ground.
Thirsty, she lifts some
grapes to her mouth
and feels them burst like
a flush of blood
against her palate
her blood that’s fed the
sand.
