Sappho, from If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho; tr. by Anne Carson
“This story is a tragedy because it didn’t have to end this way.”
vs
“This story is a tragedy because it was always going to end this way.”
#a REALLY good tragedy is locked in quantum uncertainty between these two states
Linda Pastan, from Waiting for My Life: Poems; “What We Want”
[Text ID: “and in the morning / our arms ache. / We don’t remember the dream, / but the dream remembers us.”]
Andrew McMillan, from Pandemonium; “swan”
[Text ID: “mother don’t eat me / mother I’m trying so hard / to get better”]