Poem with Lines from Sappho

I tell you
someone will remember us
in the future—
           & through this insistence
I mean remembering

how we plunged
our hands into a bath
of acids, plucked 
         hair & dirt off
your faces and backs,

scrubbed skin 
you could never get
smooth in those hard
          to reach places.
I mean remembering

how we carefully  
folded tips, put them 
away in coffee tins for years  
          under the sink; buttoned
our coats to walk out

again into the winter air
to get to that second,
that third job. In the hard
          shine of office chrome
& clear glass, floors

polished as though
they could be brighter than
the river moon; in the hours
          we croon or rock babies 
not our own—you 

never really see our faces.
You don't want to remember
what you so easily discard.
          You won't check
the violence of your desire

for war & always
war. We won't cover up the blue 
marks, the holes you shot through 
          these bodies, Still, we'll sieve  
the good silver light, we'll mop

it up for someone 
to remember us in the future.
They'll kiss our foreheads, our palms,
            before anointing our feet, 
scattering flowers as we go.