Still Life With Wine Bottle

Now this is odd, but this green bottle
with its simple slashes of light,
reminds me of the beauty of "real" bottles
whose beauty I have never seen.

The wine glass, too, the whole and sliced
apples, the cutting board, these too
remind me of visions I have never seen.

It is as if I have been living two lives,
one where ordinary apples and cheeses
are sliced up on ordinary bread boards,

and another I don't know about,
like a dream forgotten upon waking,
where wine twinkles with intelligence,
each faceted shape of cut apple has its own
character, its own face, where golden
light creates richness wherever it touches,
where the very corkiness of a cork on a cloth
is palpably miraculous--understand me, now,

I have never seen these things, nor
do I see them here; I am not fooled
by these daubs of paint. I can see
as well as you that the twinkle of this wine
is smears of white paint. But these things
remind me of the ones I've never seen.

Dean Blehert

Last Updated: October 6, 2002