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.