"Mary Jo and Sappho" by Mary Jo Bang

MARY JO AND SAPPHO

Her face is facing the sea, her shoulders
are covered in a coat she took from a hook
on the door before we walked out
of the dim-lit room where I’d kissed her
and called her my altar.
She said: “Some say this, some say that,
but I say—whatever you desire,
that is beauty.” She ofc said more than that
but that’s what I most remember.
When we made our way along the path
at the top of the precipice and saw the boys
waving up to us, we called down,
saying they should stay where they were,
that we liked one another better.
We were other but otherwise well-behaved—
tempting fate and painting the dawn
red with ultra-highlights. “So pretty,”
Aphrodite said. After that, everyone
wanted one. I loved her so. She loved me
only briefly before running off with the ghost
of a goddess who’d lied when she said
she loved her. She preferred that once-was
to me, a mortal who never lied
but who was flawed in every other respect.
This account of the action, recounted
ad infinitum, refreshes the narrator so that
the story can maintain itself until the dead
finally understand the damage they’ve done.

Female Companions of Sappho, Antoine-Christian Zacharie, called Tony Zac, ca. 1868

“Mary Jo and Sappho” originally appeared in The Gay & Lesbian Review (Jan-Feb 2025), Vol. 32, Issue 1

Audio: Mary Jo Bang reads “Mary Jo And Sappho”

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Photo Credit: Carly Anne Faye

Mary Jo Bang is the author of nine books of poems, including A Film in Which I Play Everyone, which was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award, and Elegy, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award. A collection of ekphrastic poems titled The Museum of Mary is forthcoming from Graywolf Press is 2027. She teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.

Website: https://www.maryjobang.com/