Aggressive Chatter

Ok, he said, here’s a question.
If you could have one more snippet

Of an unknown Sappho lyric
Or a scrap of conversation

Between a couple of ale wives
In a pub, from the same era,

Just a little bit of gossip
From an ordinary morning

In some empty pub on Lesbos,
Twenty-five hundred years ago,

Which would you take? Not so simple,
Is it? Think of that the next time

You try to achieve perfection
Or revolution in a poem.