​Cycladic Female Figure at the Getty Villa, by Elizabeth Spenst

Female Figure of the Late Spedos Type, the Schuster Master, (Greece), about 2400 B.C.

​Cycladic Female Figure at the Getty Villa

And even with the fires raging
I still hold myself close
Here in this dark room
I am mystery
Tattooed goddess
Ornament
Burial prize
Stolen from a grave 
Laid with my master
Made him my slave
The child in my belly
Never born, always just
Beneath these arms
Round like my breasts
My smooth face painted
Origins in azurite and cinnabar 
This wind reminds me of home
Isle where I was laid to rest
The pieces of me kept whole
For centuries I have wished
To be shattered on the pyramid at Keros
One shoulder here one leg there
Oh, the ruin of that place
No strangers leering through glass
They wonder at my former use
I was what I am: Reminder

Elizabeth Spenst

Elizabeth Spenst is a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and critic with work appearing in Rattle, On the Seawall, the Tuskegee Review, Paste Magazine, ARTS.BLACK, and forthcoming in the Inquisitive Eater. She's received institutional support for her research and writing from Yale University, the New School, Cave Canem, and Brooklyn Poets. You can find her work at elizabethspenst.com. ​