Statue of Sappho, Lesbos

I’ve given some thought

to the way wind brushes sleep
from her eyes—

as when I dreamt my love
and brushed away the world. Yet tears
have long since collected

in sterile pools at the base of her
statue, and morning rains stepping out
into cool air, form

little imperfections dampening her marble
temples. Not one word
more will pass by the sliver of her eye,

and language,
once a fruit shaken down bough by bough,
lies untouched

in her basket. I return to common
melody—between seasons, the vibrant red
leaf tint, the veins’ papyrus

crinkle in a map
of touch, lilt of strange dispersal, oceanic
thought and waning moon

above these folds, stone-flowing chlamys
and cradled lyre. What can I say

to the inventiveness of wind and sea they
slowly urn?


David Capps is a philosophy professor at Western Connecticut State University. He is the author of three chapbooks: Poems from the First Voyage (The Nasiona Press, 2019), A Non-Grecian Non-Urn (Yavanika Press, 2019), and Colossi (Kelsay Books, 2020). He lives in New Haven, CT.

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