Thursday Poem

If You Could See Her After Drinking Wine . . .

—to Micheál agus Michelle
If you could see her after drinking wine, 
Wine from Chile of the berry-red kind
Prancing ahead of me in the middle of the night
Through the business district with her face alight
Having left the pub late and a little tight.
Ah, if you could see her after drinking wine.
.

If you could see her after drinking wine.
Wine called Hoch from Germany’s Rhine
Her hands like birds fluttering in flight
In a sugawn café when the day is high
Her voice louder than the crowd’s by just a mite.
Oh, if you could see her after drinking wine.
.

If you could see her after drinking wine,
Beaujolais Nouveau, strawberries and cream
At a garden party under autumn’s gleam
Her bike by the gate lost in a dream
Of the road home as the sun goes to sleep.
Ah, if you could see her after drinking wine.
.

If you could see her after drinking wine.
Wine from California’s grape-fields fresh and new
Hopping through the Stack-of-Barley a bit askew
In her oh so new blue suede shoes.
If you could see her, as I see her, after drinking wine . . .

.
by Colm Breathnach
from Chiaroscura
publisher: Coiscéim, Dublin, 2006