Bitter Wine
This fruit I plucked, though tightly entwined
(To hide from birds) in a thorny brier vine
I had hoped to pour from a goat hide flask
A sweet bouquet of blackberry wine.
To drink -a smile, from my true love's glass.
The thorns which saved the fruit from birds
Were sharp and long -filled with poison burrs.
A drop of blood from a brier thorn prick
Death came quick like a mute priest's words
Before wine turned sweet, blood turned thick.
Around my grave grows a thorny brier vine
Entwined, grows the sweetest berries, yet dry.
My beloved visits my grave no more
But for me in the fall blackberries cry
And stain my grave with a blood red lure.
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