Vintage

Summer, always denoted by genotype
winter is anonymous
bundled together like old newspapers
and binned
but each summer has a unique identifier :
The summer of
drought
mosquitoes
Star Wars
planking.

This was the summer of South Australian claret
clink chic, never brimming to fashion –
a past’s, passing fad.

We were very young
and newly formed,
had nothing, only hope,
anorexic wallets and obese dreams.
Two thirds of a generation older
perhaps she saw vicariousness
her own optimistic beginnings,
a decade and a half earlier –
still the 60’s –
still swinging,
“ ooooh the stories I could tell you.”

Sometimes she did
with a glass of wine.
She knew we had little money,
often contrived a reason for us to visit
and always a glass, or two, of South Australian claret.