Shell of Venus
A 5-year-old,
running around
Grandma’s house.
//
A sculpture stand
on the steps,
a naked woman on a shell.
//
Its delicacy is scary;
the thought of
destruction of beauty.
//
A 10-year-old’s mother,
claiming beauty for
being born on the land of Venus;
//
A memory of a home.
A nostalgia of flawless beauty.
A land of what-ifs.
//
A 20-year-old,
searching for familiarity
in Botticelli’s brush strokes.
//
Where does Venus belong?
//
In the middle of the Mediterranean,
where she was born out of pain?
//
In Paphos, where she first
settled on terrain?
//
In Olympus where goddesses
like her lived?
//
In Florance, where her birth
was made into a naked woman on a shell?
//
Is she even Venus
or is she Aphrodite?
//
How can one recognise a land
of grandma stories, yet feel like an exile?
//
Perhaps, it is stories that make
one exists, parts cut from one
that give birth to one.
//
Perhaps, one’s both the cloak
and the wind that blows off
all the covers.
//
Perhaps she is not one
but all;
//
she’s not of one
but her own.
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Photo Credits: Adam Wilson on Unsplash – https://unsplash.com/photos/ENJVnrvAMuA