Lately I sit at my middle-aged table,
patch phrases of childishly broken Greek
a tongue I could never hope to speak

learning by rote what burning
Sappho spontaneously sung
as the ceiling fan kisses my cheek.

Sappho’s elephant was Eros
he battered her portals
of ivory and horn:

Epithalamia and Eleutheria
a girl’s thick scent transported her
a girl’s thick ankles crushed her.

She wrapped her legs around
his purple saddle and let herself be carried
over the humpback island.

Later, a Cretan ballerina hung
on his low-slung coral tusk,
to be kissed by the poet’s song.

Drunk on a girl’s breath swollen with dusk,
her favorite season was while hunting
elephants mad with musth.

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