after Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus
// Do you remember that time you dropped a gold ring (your father’s backup token) into a pint of beer? It hissed in a haze of metallic bubbles, threatening to dissolve. The nightclub pulsed with techno beats and migraine lights. You looked at the face across from you and said that the ring swimming in the glass looked psychedelic. Prophetic even. It turned out to be the worst scare tactic ever. You never saw anyone vanish that fast on a first outing.
// The river drops into the sea, mingling in a centrifugal waltz.
The blue herons darting in the rushes appear stark, unpaired.
The mangroves are circled with salt.
// You burn with the desire to know the gilded world beyond your reach. So many Venuses stare at you from the walls. Their flowing hair is adorned with the shells of calico scallops and the waves propel them to their pedestals in the sky. They are framed in sepia perfection.
You know nothing of this orbit of existence.
// The wedding band was made of Kolar gold with a sacred symbol
carved on the inside.
Only a single dimple puckered its otherwise smooth skin.
// June will make a floodplain of these fields—
monsoon tears and white whirlpools.
You must loosen the girdle and plot your escape before that.
// The oceanids are surrounded by laurel trees. They throw down a
shower of roses.
Cattails kiss their porcelain feet.
Not a day goes by when they don’t remind you
that you belong to the wheel,
that you are made of wet earth.
// You still have that ring. It blazes on the fourth digit of your left
hand.
Shadow gold—the one ring to frighten them all.
// Wouldn’t you want to know what it is like to be celestial, to be
adored without reason,
to be served privileges on a platter?
Wouldn’t you like to wear a halo,
dazzle in the pantheon for a day?
// Tsk. Just look at you, drawing shiny nimbuses—
saying all this as if you get to choose.
// Maybe you do get to choose.
