The Poems of Sappho
Who would not like to know more about this garment? asks Anne Carson
of the cloth Sappho calls beudos. It is defined as a short transparent
dress.
I’d like to meet an older version of you. Maybe stop by for tea
and watch you sitting there, knees curled underneath you, rubbing your
hands on the oily stone. I’d watch your bones recede to your heart.
You burn me, you say. And I don’t know what comes next, what fragment
we sharpen against the bright grindstone. I’ll tell you about
my own bone, there and how difficult the raft-making process went, braiding
the reeds and chewing the knots. What kind of water could lift such
a thing? And people will interrupt us occasionally to fill the cups
and wrap your hip (which would surely be a bit weak from dance).
“It is midnight and time spins away”
Alone
I would ask you about the weather, how clouds constitute a kind of
action. How hard God is to listen to. We break our backs over each other
laughing. And I’m not afraid to say that I wish I were beautiful,
like you.
“I convulse, greener than grass, and go
close to death” Seizure