_79. Quetch (Old Country II)

The first time I got drunk
was at this table,
drinking little fistfuls of
the young, white wine with my aunt and uncle,
waiting for a cousin’s delayed train
to deliver her.
In the morning
my father and I drove
to the old village
and in the graveyard
he told me the stories
written in his language on the tombstones.
We passed orchards of the small,
bruised-purplish fruit my aunt kept
in a bowl on the foyer table.
My father filled his pockets
with quetch and walnuts
from the family house,
empty now, in Schengen.
We sat on the car and threw the pits
and shells in the river.
We want to stay
what we are.
And don’t we:
now forever later here’s
my uncle pulling out the bottle of quetch
my great-grandfather distilled
and measuring it into
little decanted glasses;
it’s mellow after all these years
he says, but you can still taste it
the sweet small fruit
strong language in the mouth.