"21st-Century Sappho" and two more poems
21st-Century Sappho
Fans of Philip Glass and glitter, of Wagner’s Ring and Saturday
Night Live, her bevy of muses schmoozed with patrons
of the arts [
] along the rugged coastline,
wearing couture dresses trimmed with feathers,
while she, shod in the same gold gladiator sandals
she’d had for ages, [
] her century-old cigarettes.
*
]the foot-long run in her fish-net
stockings [
] minnow-belly white [
wish she knew how
to console a merman loathe to let go of his tail.
*
[
] befell fallen fishwives
when grapes reached the ground
with the weight of what would be wine.
*
Patrons sipped Prosecco sangrias out on the lawn,
remarking how rarely they saw pagans appear in Christian
Dior. [
De rigueur that season:
below-the-breast necklines,
peek-a-boo lilac chiffon.
*
] whitewashed walls again
against the midnight Grecian sea.
To what could a girl ever aspire,
if not night?
Deer Leg in a Tree
The deer leg swung, bare
femur plucked
by the thin-fingered wind
in the song of what simply
happens.
Knee-joint
to limb-crook, singing
of ax-strike, bear claw
or saw—no more than a feeling
of blade,
some sharp ripper,
skillfully honed. No blood
on the ground, no Orphic
scatter to gather together again:
no head, heart, leg, or hoof,
save that one running
alone in the April wind.
Gull Body on the Beach
In your eyes, night
carries through with its threat.
Kelp cradles your brittle
body,
shale heart,
feathers
jostled by fickle winds.
You recall
an island
of sand and shrub,
beach plums and pale
cockles.
Dune grass
scrapes salt off the bone-
white air
through which your wings
still wish to return,
broken beak,
shell bound for the sea.
