Sappho in Her Study

The files in the filing cabinet
Are all talking at once.
Mumble jumble, say the files
In the filing cabinet.

The desk, discreet,
Discloses nothing.

Rough drafts live 
A roustabout life, 
Tumbling from shelves,

While books, published 
and smugly replete, 
No longer feel the need 
To compete.

Stationery sprawls,
Casual as sunbathers.

In the locked drawer,
Love letters lie.

Credit

Author

Kelly Cherry

Kelly Cherry is the author of more than twenty books, most recently the poetry collections Beholder's Eye (Groundhog Poetry Press, 2017) and Quartet for J. Robert Oppenheimer: A Poem (LSU Press, 2017). She served as Virginia's Poet Laureate from 2010 to 2012, and has received fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, among other awards. She lives with her husband, the novelist Burke Davis III, in Virginia.

Date Published

01/01/2002