Tish Davis: The Family Vitaceae

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Clusters of grapes are stenciled on a periwinkle watering can in my aunt’s kitchen. Two rusted hand pruners and the old rosewood harvesting shears, tips in the tin, point down.

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“Do you remember your grandmother’s vineyard?”

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I remember the weekends . . . . Father took a cotton rag and wiped grease off of the old, red tractor while my uncles gathered tools and loaded everyone onto the trailer. Grandmother, always a few rows ahead of us, trimmed and composted in calico dress and barn boots. My aunts said she brought secrets with her—cuttings from the old country.

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Grapes, at harvest time, were packed in wooden crates, loaded onto flatbeds with wooden rails. We cousins played a game of chase alongside the procession. Berries jiggled in boxes. I stopped and pulled the beggar-ticks out of my socks.

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frozen on the vine

the grapes

my father grew

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by Tish Davis

Dublin, Ohio

first published in Presence #38, May 2009