I say yes to ox hides
in loops about your throat.
I say yes to yoking sparrows.
A sweet echo to tear your dresses.
I say yes to all things
greener than grass, a clean mantle.
I say yes to rising after sundown
In densely flowered meadows, blooming
with honey lotus.
My tongue is empty. My voice cracks.
I say yes to a mountain whirlwind.
I’m sick, swollen with shame.
Shame disarms me.
You can’t bear to share, and I have no pleasure.
Our youth, pear-breasted,
can you now forget all these days?
I say yes to shunning you.
Poem is composed of fragments found in Sappho: Poems: A New Version, trans. Willis Barnstone. Los Angeles: Sun and Moon Press, 1998.
~Andrea Dickens