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Writer's pictureDan McCrory

Bittersweet Unrequited

by Dan McCrory

Image of a hand holding another hand.
Image credit: Alexander Grey on Unsplash

If I offered you the sun and moon and stars

Sweet Sappho

Would you deny me your soulful gaze, your gentle smile

Because of that which dangles in my nether regions?

You and it were complicit once

Unwittingly, perhaps.

But it brought you here to me.

 

Can we discard the labels and preconceptions

To accept that which is in each of us:

Intense desire, a burning fire

A love that hides its simple beauty

In baser instincts and animal lust?

Oh, to touch those lips with mine!

To share a breath, a look of souls intertwined.

 

Then let me lie spent upon your breast

Hearing your heart murmur beneath me

Slower, slower, the fire consumed.

And let me lie beside you, just two souls

Who have found each other in the darkness

And embraced.

Love is love and should not be denied.


***

Black and white photo of the author, Dan McCrory.
Dan McCrory

Dan McCrory is known primarily for his novels and screenplays, but his poetry has been published in the 2020 Anthology of California's Best Emerging Poets. In this particular piece, he examines the relationship between the Greek poet Sappho and the story of her demise: A legend from Ovid suggests that she threw herself from a cliff when her heart was broken by Phaon, a young sailor, and died at an early age. McCrory and his wife Terri live in Southern California.

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