LGBTQ+ Poem: teach me to remember: an ode to Sappho, by Sam Leonard

[intertwined with Anne Carson’s “If Not, Winter”

never have your words belonged to you.
the etched papyrus
[covers
those who hold your heart,
those you lost.

[bitter
they left you –
begging, pleading to stay
[I simply want to be dead
than be without you.
[their hearts grew cold
from sterile time spent in sterile marriages,

and you. you were frozen.
immortalized.
[grieving for the past
while she moved forward.

I find myself yearning,
[cloth dripping
with blood from torn, delicate hands
that hold your ruined remembrance
together.
[whatever you
keep hidden from me, I tell myself,
is to keep me safe.

I am
[aware of this:
I cannot stop myself.
[you burn me.
forever, it will be
[you, I want
You.
[I shall love
you, my darling.
[as long as there is in me
a heart that beats. even after its
final note,
[I shall love
you then.
to love is
[to suffer
you once told me, and
[in myself I am
unable to disbelieve a word that falls
from your lips,
soft petals from dying violets.

[rejoice, go and
[remember me.

I will. I do. I lay next to her;
you are
[right here
with me.
I kiss her once, hear your voice
[ (now again)
I kiss her twice, hear your voice
[some sweet song,
dripping,
[honeyvoiced

–Submit to Aphrodite,
[to love’s desire.
She loves you with something
[new
that others will remember

[even in another time.
I cry out to You in the night, and
[into desire I shall come
but, my Beloved, it is
[not easy for us.
there is
[no grove
for our love to flourish,
[no dance
our weary muscles remember,
[no sound
as the weight of Their hands remain
[around your soft throat.
They want you to
[sing to us
through Their mouths
and leave you
[trembling.

never again will you be wholly yours.

[I am broken with longing
for a soul drowning,
chest Agape –
[golder than gold
you glisten in the ink, and I
sink in
to float alongside you for
[as long as you want.