The Wine — Blackbird Archive

← v11n2, Fall 2012

As the bloom

of the crocus

cuts the noose

of winter away

so together

in bed after

fighting hard

in their usual

separate way

she lifts—

knowing he likes

this—the red

wine-colored

nipples

of her breasts

one at a time

in the spinning

house

to the warmth

of her mouth.

love marriage body

Steve Scafidi

Steve Scafidi is the author of Sparks from a Nine-Pound Hammer (Louisiana State University Press, 2001), For Love of Common Words (Louisiana State University, 2006), The Cabinetmaker’s Window (Louisiana State University, 2014), To the Bramble and the Briar (University of Arkansas Press, 2014) and a chapbook, Songs for the Carry-On (Q Avenue Press, 2013). He has won the Larry Levis Reading Prize, the James Boatwright Prize, and the Miller Williams Prize. His poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and he has taught at several universities including, most recently, in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.