Sappho

softly, softly

          poets whisper in their pages

you breathe prose from long ago

          (when history was written to be read)

wrong hands trace a strange alphabet into skin
  
          rough-breathing-eta

pi-omicron-eta-iota-tau-alpha-sigma

          i press a kiss to freckled shoulders

an unfamiliar tongue

          roses - gold -

a little death.

Fragments.

Somewhere, a book shuts.

You don't exist.