by Christina Daub

Wine

Photo courtesy of Paul, Free Digital.

Sometimes wine is a river you flower in,
the tight buds of your lips opening
to sip, to swallow a dark sun in.

You smile as the world unmoors itself
and words float out in unfamiliar
tongues. The grape’s too perfect

to resist–its supple globes, its goblet air,
its hard vines snaking from the blood-fed
soil. You could be Bacchus calling in

the saints: full-bodied St. Estephe,
or sprightly St. Emilion. They swirl
and burn, the river rising inside you

till there you are, brim, half-bobbing
with affection, laughter, half-drowning,
kissing, saying, yes, my darling, yes,

the dock a long way off, the bow line gone.

–Christina Daub

First published in The Poet’s Cookbook, Recipes from Tuscany, edited by Grace Cavalieri and Sabine Pascarelli.

Voice

Christina Daub‘s recent work is included in the anthologies, Full Moon on K Street, edited by Kim Roberts, The Poet’s Cookbook, edited by Grace Cavalieri, and 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day, and The Paradelle, both edited by Billy Collins. She teaches Creative Writing and Poetry in the English Department at George Washington University and has taught in the Maryland and Virginia Poets-in-the-Schools programs as well as to adults for many years at The Writer’s Center.

She is the founder of The Plum Review and co-founder of the Plum Writers Retreats and ran the Plum Reading Series for several years in Washington, D.C. She is a recipient of the Margaret Emerson Bailey prize and a Young American Poet’s award. Her work has been translated into Russian, Italian & German.

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