My father and I are sitting at a table, trying to enjoy
A left over Margaux that I found in the improvised cellar
Beneath the wardrobe in my parents’ final dwelling.
My birth year, I’m afraid, was not a good vintage;
I comfort myself that my father could not have known this.
‘May I open it?’ ’Why don’t you,’ he said.
We wondered if the wine would still work
And if I could get the cork out in one piece.
The answer to these questions was no.
It was a terrible Margaux but we finished it anyway.
Not for the first time, my father told me about how he
sailed from Sumatra to Holland by ocean liner,
A trip that took three to four weeks eighty years ago;
An unimaginable long time for anything, but
How I wish I were on that ship right now.
We talked for two hours my father and I
More accurately: I grilled him.
A familiar crossfire. He didn’t doze off once.
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten
Wat fijn dat jullie er zijn