Tuesday poem #202 : Sarah Dowling : from "Entering Sappho"

Because so soon as I see you—a cold sweat

spreads all over my body—it has stolen

all directions—a cold sweat pours

from my body—a confused buzzing noise

in my ears—a cold sweat floods me—

a cold sweat floods me, and I am

greener than grass—and then I feel like dying—

and a cold sweat gets on me—and close,

half-raised—I lie back down

in the grass—a subtle flame flowing

in my veins—and a man kisses your

knees—a cold sweat floods me—a trembling

seized me entirely—a subtle fire runs

in me, and faltering, a subtle fire starts

running under my skin—a subtle fire,

a tremor through me fully, and that

subtle, short fire is immediately under

my skin—it seems to me—

Sarah Dowling is the author of DOWN (Coach House, 2014) and Security Posture (Snare, 2009), which received the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry. She has also published a chapbook, Birds & Bees (TrollThread, 2012), and shorter works in numerous literary journals. Sarah's literary criticism appears in American Quarterly, Canadian Literature, GLQ, and elsewhere. She teaches at the University of Washington Bothell.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan