Primavera, by Penelope Moffet

Primavera, by Sandro Botticelli (Italy) c. late 1470s-early 1480s

Primavera
 
Oranges on trees 
above women wearing 
silks that frame 
improbably perfect breasts.
Faces bland, eyes unfocused,
they lift their arms,
dance delicately. 
Behind them
twilight happens.
They’re young, 
they can’t look out. 
Young once myself, 
I understand.
The blue god on the right, 
cheeks puffed,
stares at the girl 
he’s there to seize.
Her face is tilted back, 
her mouth already chained. 
Overhead a murderous 
blindfolded cherub 
hovers, 
bow taut.

Penelope Moffet

Penelope Moffet is a poet and part-time legal secretary who lives in Los Angeles.  She is the author of two chapbooks, It Isn’t That They Mean to Kill You (Arroyo Seco Press, 2018) and Keeping Still (Dorland Mountain Arts, 1995).  Her poems have been published in Gleam, One, Natural Bridge, Permafrost, Pearl, The Rise Up Review, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Verse-Virtual, The Missouri Review and other literary journals, as well as in several anthologies, including What Wildness Is This: Women Write about the Southwest (University of Texas Press, 2007) and Floored (Kingly Street Press, 2020).