Take a chance, taste the red wine on my lips,
lean in close. Can you smell the plums and poppies,
a hint of cacao, soft and tender? Mind wanders
to maenads and tigers, blood on your hands...

Bacchus would drive kings mad, execute them
to the frenzied hands of mothers, wives and daughters.
But what’s a taste: flowing like blood, red as sin?
In the day, hot is the sun, but at night,

seek the sun along my skin, running your hands
down my back as I draw you near, lips brush against
ear, and I whisper—I don’t really love you.
And still the wine on my breath. Crushed poppies.