Just the right
amount is poured
into the long-stemmed glass
so that the cabernet sauvignon
can breathe, the bouquet preserved.
My mind is on the palate
after the first sip of black cherry,
the green pepper and vanilla spice.
The grape has fulfilled its promise
from vineyard vine to custodial cask.
After the second sip my eye wanders
to the Degas mounted on the wall,
and I decide that it represents clarity
and truth
despite the dizzy white brushstrokes
that created the spinning ballet class.
It is after the third sip that the
arteries dilate
and my heart begins to reliably relax
into a philosopher’s quest for whatever
philosophers seek to extrapolate
from postulates about chickens and eggs
and angels jitterbugging on a pin.
I decide to investigate.
In another painting, lovers kissing
in the foreground are almost an afterthought.
Telephone lines and streets
converge to a vanishing point,
a focal slide of perspective,
a vintage vortex and invitation
minus the cursive and vellum.
But my mind, try as it might,
cannot penetrate
the infinitude
of this black hole hanging
on the far side of the oak-paneled room.
So I tilt my head back
and think of this one unalterable truth
that cannot be deduced from theorems
or dialectics or even the rattle
of a shaman’s beads around a midnight fire:
some kisses are indeed sweeter than wine.
~William Hammett
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