Daunt Books

Pages of azure ink. And the man on the waves, feeling his way through the winter, slipping passively beneath the waves, an afterimage in his wake, a woman’s shoulder, belly, breast, the small of her back, the lines tapering to become a mere stroke of the pen, a thread of ink on the thigh, and on the thigh a long, fine
scar
carved with a brush
on the scales of a fish.

Once again limb-loosing love shakes me, bitter-sweet, untamable, a dusky animal.

SAPPHO

IT WAS HERE. This is where she stood. These stone lions looked at her; now they no longer have heads. This fortress – once impregnable, now a pile of stones – was the last thing she saw. A long-forgotten enemy demolished it, so did the centuries, sun, rain, wind. The sky is still the same, a deep blue block, high, vast.