^{Δέδυκε μὲν ἀ σελάννα
καὶ Πληΐαδες
          —Sappho}

When the moon was high I waited,
   Pale with evening’s tints it shone;
When its gold came slow, belated,
   Still I kept my watch alone

When it sank, a golden wonder,
   From my window still I bent,
Though the clouds hung thick with thunder
   Where our hilltop roadway went.

By the cypress tops I’ve counted
   Every golden star that passed;
Weary hours they’ve shone and mounted,
   Each more tender than the last.

All my pillows hot with turning,
   All my weary maids asleep;
Every star in heaven was burning
   For the tryst you did not keep.

Now the clouds have hushed their warning,
   Paleness creeps upon the sea;
One star more, and then the morning—
   Share, oh, share that star with me!

Never fear that I shall chide thee
   For the wasted stars of night,
So thine arms will come and hide me
   From the dawn’s unwelcome light.

Though the moon a heav’n had given us,
   Every star a crown and throne,
Till the morn apart had driven us—
   Let the last star be our own.

Ah! the cypress tops are sighing
   With the wind that brings the day;
There my last pale treasure dying
   Ebbs in jeweled light away;

Ebbs like water bright, untasted;
   Black the cypress, bright the sea;
Heav’n’s whole treasury lies wasted
   And the dawn burns over me.

In some other life, I can hear you

breathing: a pale sound like running

fingers through tangled hair. I dreamt

again of swimming in the quarry

& surfaced here when you called for me

in a voice only my sleeping self could

know. Now the dapple of the aspen

respires on the wall & the shades cut

its song a staff of light. Leave me—

that me—in bed with the woman

who said all the sounds for pleasure

were made with vowels I couldn’t

hear. Keep me instead with this small sun

that sips at the sky blue hem of our sheets

then dips & reappears: a drowsy penny

in the belt of Venus, your aureole nodding

slow & copper as it bobs against cotton

in cornflower or clay. What a waste

the groan of the mattress must be

when you backstroke into me & pull

the night up over our heads. Your eyes

are two moons I float beneath & my lungs

fill with a wet hum your hips return.

It’s Sunday—or so you say with both hands

on my chest—& hot breath is the only hymn

whose refrain we can recall. And then you

reach for me like I could’ve been another

man. You make me sing without a sound.