When the sun dries a crummy ground on a southern slab of France,

Mr Brooks is off like a horse led to water,
 

Not being one to leave things to chance. “The worse the ground,

the better the grapes,” he says to his spouse.
 

“Time to go kick the tires, as they say.”

For he never laid claim to a crop of Champagne
 

unless he was there to squelch the grape personally-

the tip of the tongue in a trip down to the palate
 

to tap the juice that would sell once fermented.

“I’ll call when I get there,” he said on his way
 

out the door. “You know how this goes.

I’ll be back before you can say Au Revoir.”
 

_________
 

When the moon swells to an unearthly crescent,

then Marie lights up the classic post-coital cigarette
 

and blows smoke out the window

over that French terrain.
 

The rise and fall of his chest already involuntary,

Mr Brooks must be dreaming a vintage yield.
 

No time like the present

to wish things were different and sell off a crop of champagne.
 

___________
 

When Mr Brooks returned it was nearly noon.

She must be out for a walk,
 

he thought. Yet what she had done

was merely stick out her thumb, and hop on,
 

carrying nothing save the fruit of her womb,

newly sewn and to some yet unknown.
 

And though her driver–likely an illegal

and hardly caballero–
 

scared her half-stiff as they shot out west

like a last fling between bow and arrow,
 

she could hardly be described as one

on the edge of something gone wrong,
 

ready for any upcoming collision,

traffic stop, or accidental explosion.