Sappho's Child

You took my fingers, terrified

Only because I rose from you

To worship at a place beside

A willow grove. The leaf and dew

Dissolved me easy, I was only

Reminding air of what it knew

Already, and I left you lonely

To supplicate a word for you.

Call the great lovers out by name,

Demand them what they got of it:

Helen, Oenone, Actaeon,

All satisfied to bear a stone.

Distracted lovers hated home,

Hated a snotty, squalling brat;

But I, fertile and undefiled

By loving, bore a lover's child,

Even though song be all it is.

The others bury what they bear

Or fling it weeping into air

And curse at willowed entrances.

But boulder from the sea upcast,

Frost of the water shivering gray-

My song, heavy of these, may last

As long as they do, anyway.