by Dan McCrory
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.
***
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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