Concord
       

at leaf lift, fat fruit falling
                to hand, bubble-headed bird
                                secrets glass-blown
                hard seed heart, tongue-crushed

sweet bloom-end narcissi, sugar holding
                scent-heavy fence brambler,
                                branch brawny shoulders,
                twiggy hands, mouth of its violet

kiss-or even darker, a velvet sheen
                pearl or nacre first snow-
                                gleam glove-cleared, rubbed,
                thumb-polished, this

untended flower mouth bee-stung
                berry, this love honey tumble
                                sweet thicket, autumnal
                tendril, unmeditated

yield; this nonetheless late gleaning,
                a transcendental century
                                and a half hence its cold Massachusetts
                roots, declension of vitis Labrusca,

black fox grape the native wilding,
                frontier now of my tillage, my
                                viticulture, my clean Ball jars,
                my Northern thrift, my lyric

husbandry—plump bushels all this unbroken
                afternoon sheared from vine and cane:
                                swoon plummy and beguiled
                into my marveling palms—

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Copyright © 2016 Lisa Bickmore All rights reserved
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Elixir Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission