(Yes, one of the reasons I want to learn Ancient Greek is to read Sappho in her original language. Yes, one of my goals in my life is to create a poetry collection building on all of her remaining fragments, with this being the first of its kind. I have priorities.

But since this is based on an original that has enchanted readers for literal millenia, check out a translation of Sappho 31 to fully see how I turn it inside out. The skeleton of my revival is mostly based on Anne Carson’s translations, but I definitely looked to others for inspiration.)

He seems to me a man who’d like to kill god
Whatever he is, sitting in front of you
Prowling to see any bent
To deconstruct who you are
But he’s sure he’ll sink into sweet legend

Your smile after is sweeter; but how is it
Even when he’s gone
My own tongue cracks. And every word’s drought. Fruitless.
Any peep from him puts the gall in my belly on wings
So when I look at you, even a moment
No speaking is left in me

If I see you next- a subtle fire will speed through my skin
He took my sight, he burst my ears
Already so your touch makes me seize and shake
Myself, or is that you?
But whatever I try to hold
I am still paler than grass, I am deaf from all of this buzzing
I am dead- or I seem to be at this rate

But what can be endured, can be recovered
As when I saw the sun-glades shimmer in human eyes
While speaking words stronger than bone, more resistant than sinew
Yet more sensitive than nerve and barer than skin
I remembered to see the poorer half that lives

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