Elizabeth Bruno

SHE WISHES FOR A VINEYARD

Everyday my mother sips cabernet, the kind with strapping legs
and a heart that thumps like a rabbit. She drinks Silver Oak
from her pretty glasses and remembers Jesus, remembers
how much he and my grandmother disapproved: that bright yellow

mini skirt, Simon and Garfunkel, the Italian boy who loved fast
cars and slow burning cigarettes. She tastes her wine and remembers
how my grandmother used to pinch her with precision, allowed
only the smallest fold of skin to swell between her fingernails

before finally clamping down. She remembers that, the way her skin
eventually thickened, calloused over like a worn foot sole.
Everyday my mother sips cabernet, the kind that breathes deep
and casually exhales. She drinks Silver Oak from her thin glasses

and knows they’re both still there, hovering over her like a cloud
of locusts. She only senses them, the same way she can always
sense the readiness of a noodle on the boil, with nothing
but a wooden spoon to feel it swell.

Elizabeth Bruno is a recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin Parkside where she received a B.A. in English with a writing concentration. She is currently working and living in Wisconsin. Her poems have previously appeared in Lily, The Potomac & Eclectica.