What empty space exists around desire?

In a café, a woman insists that her friend take food off her plate. Each time the friend refuses, the woman murmurs, “it’s too much, it’s too much.”

Sappho’s ancient poems are just scraps now, surrounded by white desert space. Sand is ferocious enough to rub burnt rice off the bottom of a cooking pot; how can poetry stand up to it? The woman in the café widens the yawn on her plate. The ferns at her feet wait for her to bite.

Far away, happiness roots. A date palm wakes two thousand years after it was spat out in a land torn by hunger. Light bulks into its limbs. Sugar climbs into its fruit. The last time the date palm chased desire, its shoes wore out. The sun slipped and the horizon couldn’t catch it. Now it grows new fruit for the pilgrims who gather night to the crease in their knuckles.

The woman in the coffee shop shuffles on her plate the final bright words:

“nor desire

blossom

took delight”

---

Detail from painting by Maaike VanderMeer, “Matches”.

P.S. This piece is written in response to Anne Carson’s translation of Sappho in, If Not, Winter. The words at the end of the piece (“nor desire …”) are Sappho’s words. Sappho lived around 610 - 570 BCE and was considered by poets after her to be a muse for lyrical writing. Most of her poetry is lost to us, having been eroded by sand and time. The date palm mentioned in this piece is loosely based on Methuselah - a 2000 year old seed which was discovered in Masada, re-planted, and is still growing.

P.P.S. - Canada Post is shipping things again, and I’m back from time with family! If you’d like to buy some original art by me, you can find that here. <3