Snail Trail Press

Sarah Dowling

from Entering Sappho

come lie down in Sappho—
dress a little whiter & pres
                                          ent 
your wants—everything is a 
wet curtain everything is a wind 
blowing—pull the coun
                                      try open 
spread the night flat—stack 
paper further down the pave
ment—every
                     thing west is a 
platform another clock a set 
of widening walls









present the west and every
thing’s sexual—a country 
a clock an 
                other curtain a 
spreading pavement—you 
can’t do it when every
                                    thing 
is so much further & mission 
time’s invading every hit—
blowing paper get
                             ting wet 
getting night—can’t think of 
anything that moves can’t 
think of any
                   thing whiter can’t 
stack it all up 









can’t right every platform
—everything sex
                           ual’s always 
further west—everything blow
ing down—dress with no walls 
no cur
          tain no night—nothing 
west of Sappho rain & you’re 
present in a country a time a 
stack
        ed invasion—you’re spread
ing out pulling wants—getting 
wet getting whiter










pull right out of everything
—you see it blow
                            ing you’re 
wet paper you’re a curtain 
flat & white—hit the lights 
in
   vade the present—undress 
the country night its hard rain 
its width & length in time—
Sappho is want
                         ing everything 
twice as west—you have the 
mission can’t think what we’re 
here for 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sarah Dowling is the author of DOWN (Coach House, 2014) and Security Posture (Snare, 2009), which received the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry. Sarah’s third collection, Entering Sappho, is forthcoming from Coach House Books in 2020.