Continuum: A Love Poem, by Maxine Kumin

going for grapes with

ladder and pail in

the first slashing rain

of September rain

steeping the dust

in a joyous squelch the sky

standing up like steam

from a kettle of grapes

at the boil wild fox grapes

wickedly high tangled in must

of cobweb and bug spit

going for grapes year

after year we two with

ladder and pail stained

with the rain of grapes

our private language

From “Selected Poems” by Maxine Kumin. (W.W. Norton: 320 pp., $27.50) Copyright 1997 Reprinted by permission.