A Granite Sappho

(an attempt at a lesbian love poem)

I’ve lived in granite all my life.
The streets, the smells, the sounds are grey.
But you were like a Grecian wind,

an outpouring of colour in
a housecoat and flat shoes.
A granite Sappho’s what I am,

and you’re my healing muse.
This letter breaks my heart...
Why must you take the tender breath from me?

I know that I’m too lah-de-dah.
But that’s my cover, dear...
Your husband thinks I’m some posh tart

too up ‘erself to think or love.
It’s not within himself to think
that cunnies lock together like

sections of a puzzle box,
and how friction as they kiss can make
a woman scream louder than any bloodied spear.

Does he like it when you laugh? I do.
The flexing of your shoulder blades,
the hard and apple breasts relieved

of anything like tensity.
Does he know your pressure points,
the nub and crease and ridge?

Or is it all just meat to him?
Can you really consign yourself
to never exploding again?

To never being wet?
I don’t know if I can.
The desert doesn’t call to me, you do.

I wanted, I’ll admit, to slake my thirst with you.
To take you from the world of men
to some Arcadian bower, even if in truth its just

a guest house on the Brompton Road,
posing as sisters for the landlady.
I write to you in pleading tones because

I know that you’ll regret this soon enough.
I know I will. And when you’re old you’ll think again
just what it was to lock lips with

a female body. Like plunging hands in potpourri,
but that’s the miracle. The dried petals
are fresh again, or can be if you’ll only stay.