To Joshua

I posted a fragment of this poem I wrote on my FB page and it received a lot of comments so I thought I'd post it in it's entirety here with the one I imitated from Sappho. Sappho was a Greek poet in the 6th Century, the only women poet. She was mostly famous for her love poems to other women. (Remember in Greece everyone was considered bi-sexual.) Please tell me what you think! A poet loves criticism! :)

To Joshua

I loved you, Joshua, then and still,
from when I was yet of age to date,
especially a man – an older man,
even one such as you, whom my family loved.

*

Do you remember the night I wore the red dress?

*

It was, you say, the night you fell in love with me,
watching me cross the living room in my gown,
my hair curled and half undone, our eyes met
and I paused there, tucking a strand behind my ear

only for it to spring loose again before
I stepped the next few feet into the hall, out of sight.

There have been several moments (more than I
can count, for sure), when you’ve crossed in front

of me, shirtless, and I have no words, no voice,
as I watch you pull clothes on, covering muscle.

The room surrounding us didn’t exist then,
no walls, no floors, no breath.

*

I ask all the Gods, on every day we spend together,
to be pregnant with time in a miniscule hourglass.

*

I begged with them: I desire.

*

Someone, I tell you, will remember our love,
even in another time.


An imitation of Sappho’s Six Fragments for Atthis


...Now here's Sappho's poem that I used the structure of...

Six Fragments for Atthis (Translated by Sherod Santos)

I loved you, Atthis, years ago,
when my youth was still all flowers
and sighs, and you - you seemed to me
such a small ungainly girl

*

Can you forget what happened before?

*

If so, then I'll remind you how, while lying
beside me, you wove a garland of crocuses
which I then braided into strands of your hair.
And once, when you'd plaited a double necklace

from a hundred blooms, I tied it around
the swanning, sun-licked ring of your neck.

And on more than one occasion (there were two
of them, to be exact), while I looked on, too

silent with adoration to say your name,
you glazed your breasts and arms with oil.

No holy place existed without us then,
no woodland, no dance, no sound.

*

Beyond all hope, I prayed those timeless
days we spend might be made twice as long.

*

I prayed one word: I want.

*

Someone, I tell you, will remember us,
even in another time.