Venus Rising in the City, by Karl Plank

Please click blue-grey rectangle above, and scroll down to third photograph to see NYC Sea Creature, photograph by Bonnie Blake (USA) 2016. Sculpture depicted is Mermaid, by Liz Craft (USA) 2008-2015.

Venus Rising in the City
 
against the twilit sky you have risen
from no visible sea foam
an urban Venus welkin-ward
on the roof-top ledge
soft-boned  you curl on your knees
feet splayed outward  shoulders slanted
and torso leaning in so that your face
is large  an oval of Mehron’s clown white
cowl-framed with matted hair
continuous on one side as strands
of netting enmesh one shoulder
like a shawl before it is finally shrugged 
and thus you may have escaped
i feel  the seine that was to have held you fast.
 
pink areolae emerge from the skin-surface
halter of chartreuse on black body wax
your face reaches forward as if to kiss
still coldly  lips an em dash and mouth circled 
with red greasepaint that extends
to cover both nostrils so that air
is filtered through the cherry sphere
this hole without aperture below
black bars that cross one open eye
like the iron grill of a cell’s window
through which your vision will yet pass
to see the next horizon  you are at once
contained and erumpent
 
to bring with you the barnacles of the sea
swirling shells in your hair between thumb
and forefinger  in the crease
where your left thigh joins the hip
and as a lid over the right eye
pale phosphors dab your upper arm
like the glow of algae in night water
(how like human skin it seems
uncovered as a garment tatters
into the mottling of flesh and fabric) 
and now Venus  you are on fire 
with the hint of flame crackling
round your right cheek and arm
a flash that is not of the sea
but the streets below  a realm of forged-steel
verticals and horizontals and the sparks
of light that have lit you with desire
and set you climbing to defy Vulcan fury 
the vision of bodies and burning cities
yet to come

Karl Plank

Editor's note: Please click blue-grey rectangle above and scroll down to third photograph to see the image that inspired the poet to write this.

Karl Plank is the author of two recent chapbooks: A Field, Part Arable (Lithic Press) and BOSS: Rewriting Rilke (Red Bird Chapbooks). His work has appeared in publications such as Beloit Poetry Journal, Notre Dame Review, Zone 3, and Briar Cliff Review and has been featured on Poetry Daily. A past winner of the Thomas Carter Prize (Shenandoah) and a Pushcart nominee, he is the J.W. Cannon Professor of Religious Studies at Davidson College.