"sapphics" by Caitlyn Alario

sapphics

m & i wandered the marble pavement
from a bakery to the grocery store, 
where we bought a kilo of tzatziki
     on accident &

ate yogurt & pita & cucumber
for three weeks before it molded over. 
we shared a third-floor apartment
     across the street from
 
a small, trendy bar with a peninsula
of pavement out front for a patio.
all anyone talked about was the crisis,
     how athens might not
 
recover & the rural villages
we visited on weekends might lose what
little remained. still, we studied korai 
     & amphorae &
 
the philosophy of men who believed
we were deficient half-lives of themselves.
we discussed potentiality &
     actuality
 
& cultural genocide, the kind that
estranges a people from their thick sense
of being. most nights we spent huddled 
     by a computer,
 
watching television that allowed us
to forget who & where we were. on my
birthday, we made orzo in a red wine 
     reduction & drank
 
so much cheap ouzo we never made it
to the club. she threw up in a clogged sink
& i scooped the pink soup into the toilet
     with my hands. it was
 
easy to pretend the act repulsed me,
but she laid her head so sweetly in my lap,
flecks of mascara like flecks of ancient
     paint stained on her cheeks.
 
we’d kissed earlier, before the bathroom
& the vomit. we’d sat on the edge
of my bed & she’d taken my face
     in her hands. outside
 
our window, the tiny island had raged
on, populated with screenwriters &
models, tanned, pretty people who laughed &
     drank, unaware of
 
the two girls on the third floor above them
wondering how they could kiss & feel not
so different as they did with boys. there,
above the marble,
 
the bakery, the grocery store, the bank,
the bus stop, the pharmacy, the town square—
the little world those girls made together
began to erupt.

Caitlyn Alario

Caitlyn Alario is a Teaching Fellow and doctoral student at the University of North Texas. She received an MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and currently resides in Denton, TX.

Headshot Credit: Caitlyn Alario

Photo Credit: Staff