Escape – Donna Vorreyer

Inspired by Anne Carson’s translation of Sappho fragments 173-183

[you are]
like a tree-climbing vine
each spiral a channel
that dilates with dawn
then constricts again

[this]
embrace is a lie, you a liar
an untuned lyre
promising beauty
in the pluck of each string

[until]
the fog waltzes in
wearing its transparent dress
gauzing the scene
misting it pretty

[its]
makeup bag of tricks
covering bruises
a placeholder for
happiness

[this river]
not crossable
without a boat
yet I might go
and risk drowning

[pulling]
you me the whole tree
into downrushing water
to loosen these tangles
this knot that is not love

Donna Vorreyer is the author of To Everything There Is (2020), Every Love Story is an Apocalypse Story (2016) and A House of Many Windows (2013), all from Sundress Publications. She lives in the suburbs of Chicago where she serves as an associate editor for Rhino Poetry and hosts the monthly online reading series A Hundred Pitchers of Honey.