GRAPEVINE

by Richard Schnap

She was a vintage bottle of wine
Gathering dust on a back shelf
Of the liquor store of love

Overlooked for decades
By customers whose tastes veered
More toward cheap flasks of gin

But then one day an old man
With a still, sad look in his eyes
Took her down with a careful hand

And in his small room that night
He sipped her slowly and gently
As if he’d searched for her all his life