Friday, September 11, 2009

From Lesbos, Alexandria, Earth

Also published on Flowers of Sulfur

In despair and sunless
summer heat
think on dry
dark places

In Egypt, infinite
Sapphics hidden
below concrete and clay:
words written in a

language you would not know
by a woman who drank
from cups of wind
 
            Above all spits

the very sun
that shone on her shoulders
that parches your throat
that does not reach

those fragments of verse
that even now
are singing into the
ribcage of the earth

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh that's beautiful, you; especially the last stanza
'those fragments of verse
that even now
are singing into the
ribcage of the earth'

Megan Duffy said...

thank you

S.L. Corsua said...

This has a hefty serving of the spiritual, in the sense of old religion. The ending spurs the pulse to race to the beat of chants and barefoot dancing drum-loud enough to wake the gods. :)

Megan Duffy said...

Thank you, S.L.

Sappho on the brain!