[Mark McDonnell]

Thank you for this thread, Julie, it’s really great. Mary Meriam introduced me to Sapphics. I remember her very patiently talking me through the mechanics of them after I’d read and loved a few of hers, knowing they were doing something rhythmically fascinating but not being able to quite figure out what.

Here’s one of mine that she was kind enough to publish in Lavender Review, followed by two wonderful examples of her own.



Carnival

Even in the schoolyard, I think I knew, yet
gripped the heavy promise of pails of sunlight,
bright corona spilling down rusted metal,
splashing on pavements.

Turning slow in trampoline light and laughter,
paper monsters dance on their clipper fasteners,
all is breathless joy and you said you'd meet me
by the tombola.

Ferris wheel, come turn for me, time's a-flying.
Waltzers, waltz me faster and blur the houses –
terraced rows dissolving in whirling dark like
promises fading.

Reach and hook for fishes in bulging plastic,
flicking, orange flash – but the sun is sinking.
Coloured lights are laid under thick tarpaulin,
loaded on lorries.

Rolling out of town, they left flattened patches,
empty cans and wondering in the twilight
where you got to, carnival queen. I waited,
laden with pennies.



Who leaves me rootless

You! all rich now? man at your cozy table,
tête-à-têre, now gets every murmur, whisper,
laugh and sigh that dreamily leaves your lips? How
sweetly your echo

slays my heart, my hard-ridden heart, that beating
harder, horse-whipped, stifles my voice. Now wordless,
bee-stung, broke, deserted, I look at you and
totally lose it.

Fire snakes and slithers, now blisters blazing
skin, now eyes lose eyesight, now eardrums beat drums,
sweating rain, now race in a thunder tremble
whirlwind tornado

green as grass I'm taken, a prisoner chained in
ravaged daisies. Where is my mind, my flower—
petal-plucked and rootless. Be brave now Mary,
dirt poor but healthy.



Dear Heart

All the times I misunderstood, forgive me.
I could go downhill in a sled with sorrow.
Snow, my hero, build me a fort this winter
made of your hollow

hub of pulsing chambers, your crimson centre.
Greenless branches stick me like Venus arrows.
Why, my valentine, did she leave me stricken,
frozen, and slighted?

Once, she slid her fingers inside my velvet
cushion, knit my cap, and embroidered borders,
dressed me all the way to the silver heavens.
Oh, she was lovely

who could heal a storm through the tangled briars,
who could soothe a flood through the scalding trials,
who could kiss an oath through the fallen oak trees,
terrace the traumas.
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