Concords
By Taylor Hagood
Every stage excites so much.
The first tiny white spore-like growths
that spread into green frog toes.
The swelling of midsummer into plump globes
promising watery translucence.
Then the purpling, amethysts of all hues
glowing out the sunlight,
the powdery surface of the skin
telling a sugar factory like
everybody’s business.
They love September as much as wool
and with just as distinct texture.
Mashing them into a pot,
bloody affair that it is,
squeezing the evidence out of cheesecloth,
we might wonder if truly special
agents might lurk around the corner.
And what sits so quietly
as that black jar at breakfast?
What spreads into happiest red
for all generations of kindhuman?
Look there for the solutions.
Bio: Taylor Hagood lives in south Florida and is the author of the chapbooks, Lepidoctora and Tapas Rueful. His poems and reviews have appeared in such magazines as Cider Press Review, Cold Mountain Review, Dodo Eraser, Louisiana Literature, New Croton Review, Night Picnic, The River, The Poetry Lighthouse, and The Rumpus.
Author’s Note: I have great memories of grape, scuppernong, and muscadine arbors from my childhood, and I particularly enjoy cultivating Concord grapes, working with them as the drag in the succeeding seasons. I wanted to capture that experience and the peculiar resplendence and lifetime of grapes in this poem.
