“If Sappho were a sailor” by Karin Cope
Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets' daily poetry dispatch. Read "If Sappho were a sailor" by Karin Cope.
If Sappho were a sailor
By Karin Cope
You thought if Sappho were a sailor you’d know nothing about her.
No, if Sappho were a sailor you might know a few things. But there would be gaps.
If Sappho were a sailor she’d never get to where she was going.
She would miss a lot of weddings.
She would mourn the hillside orchards—apple and olive and almond trees.
Her feet would ache from hiking trails of unbroken concrete,
a month of groceries on her back.
The blaring beats of portside bars would mute her lyre.
You remember the night she boarded a boat, texting from the waves:
my tongue is broken… a subtle
fire runs under my skin.
That’s funny you tapped back: I thought you were made of water.
Sometimes on a tracking app you think you spot her vessel—
tiny pink triangle dodging tankers, winking in the night.
You wait and you watch as every battery dies--
She’s always one who never arrives.
Copyright © Karin Cope
Karin Cope is a queer Nova Scotia based poet, professor, activist and visual artist who has logged long periods at sea with her partner, Marike Finlay, conducting collaborative research and developing poetic, scholarly and socially engaged bodies of work in remote coastal communities in Mexico and Central America, Atlantic Canada, British Columbia, Alaska and the Mediterranean. Cope’s book-length publications include Passionate Collaborations: Learning to Live with Gertrude Stein, a playful and scholarly investigation into the queer life and works of a modernist icon; What we’re doing to stay afloat, a collection of lyric poems that takes aim at the politics of austerity in remote and rural coastal regions; and since 2009, a blog at visiblepoetry.ca dedicated to exploring poetic relationships between visual and verbal media. Associate Professor and Chair of Art History and Contemporary Culture at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Cope is currently at work on a new sea-going poetry project tracking several histories of migrant movements in the Mediterranean, entitled If Sappho were a sailor.
Subscribe to Poetry Pause, or support Poetry Pause with a donation today!