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.
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February 2025
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