I happened on a Sappho poem for Franz Wright,
who William Logan says,

‘drunk harder and drugged harder than any dozen poets in our health-conscious age, and
paid the penalty in hospitals and mental wards…’

In a dream I spoke to Wright and Sappho together,
he managed to say nothing,
but I told her,
‘Mom
you have given me so much’, which was a weird thing for me to say
even in a dream.

And Sappho said
‘child,
before all else was desire’.

I woke up with no clue what she meant.

Now I’m on my computer in bed
next to my wife.

I know the ache of a wound
that makes a poem feel small
vaguely writing – Twelve

over and over.

Before all else was desire.

I know the burn and throb,
quelled for an hour

by writing
or sex.

Twelve what?