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Erinna to Sappho
I saw your shoulder swell and pitch Alive, your fingers, curving, turn To summon me above that ditch Where I lay down. Yet as I came, you turned about And waved to someone out of sight, Someone you could not do without That very night. Who was she? for I only saw Mellifluous berries fall from vines, Long apple blooms depress a bough, Clustering wines Dripping their liquor as they hung In spray and tendril, curling hair. You flickered your inviting tongue At no one there; No one but air, garden, the hewn Poet above his pedestal, Lyre in the marble, song in stone, The trees, the wall; Unless there was, before I rose, One of the hollow things who walk The world in anguish, wearing clothes Just before dark; And you were calling out to her Or him, whatever bodiless Presences hollow spirits bear Beneath their dress. Whether I knew or did not know, Under the misery of my skin, What pale plunderer looted you Outside and in, I leaped, above the ditch of earth, Bodily, clung my arms around Your poising knees, and brought us both Back to the ground, Where we belong, if anywhere, To hide in our own hollowed dust. Whatever I gave, I gave no bare Pain of a ghost. I offered, worshipping, that sweet Cluster of liquors caught in globes, I burst the riches till they wet Your tousled robes; And though I stole from you no more Than fireflies gain of the soft moon, You turned to me, long, long before The ghost was gone, If ghost it was, or melon rind, Or stag's skeleton hung to dry, Lover, or song, or only wind Sighing your sigh.