Sappho Preparing to Worship

She sits at her vanity table,
Dressing her unruly black tresses
with olive oil and ivory combs.
Her body petite, almost frail,
Her belly soft with birth giving and age.
She darkens her lids with kohl,
Making her black eyes smolder.
Dabbing imported scent on
earlobes, wrists, the hollow of her throat,
the space between her breasts,
She thinks not of the Goddess
but of her lover's mouth.
Smoothing her fine white chiton,
she pulls her dark cloak on and
goes out into the night,
A priestess of Aphrodite's errand.

Published in SageWoman, No. 58, Summer 2002