Grapes of Sukkot

by Maxim D. Shrayer

In the first spring of Covid fever,
still quarantined and fearful,
we bought a tall townhome
directly across the street
from Holyhood Cemetery,
where Rosemary Kennedy rests,
sidelined from world fame.

The Irish builder left us
with limelight hydrangeas,
two leggy black maples,
and a weeping cherry—
blossoming, useless to me,
an immigrant Russian Jew
eager to live off his small property.

I planted a Concord vine—
that local philosopher of grapes,
that simpleton of jelly flavor—
in the far corner our V-shaped yard,
where mint and sage now scent the air
and Stella the silver poodle gallops,
hunting for rabbits and possums.

Three springs and three autumns hence
the vine has spread its veiny dactyls
across the sky and the fence,
forming the panels of a tabernacle—
no longer portable but still transient,
and the clusters of grapes shine upon us
like our ancestors’ desert stars.

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Maxim D. Shrayer is a bilingual writer in English and Russian and a professor at Boston College. His books include four collections of Russian-language poetry and a collection of English-language verse, Of Politics and Pandemics. Shrayer's new memoir, Immigrant Baggage, was published in 2023.