Venus, One Month Later

She, they say, has no shame:
the coarse rope of the net against her skin
the trickle of inconvenient salt and pearl
as she stood defiant, naked
to face the crippled god, that asshole
Who, blind with the brightness of her,
couldn’t speak after all, could not shout,
didn’t even hear her lover, struggling on the bed,
cursing rope, cursing him.

O the blush of her nipple, framed in the rough hemp
O her tangled hair
She looks straight, does not turn
O her wild doe heat, snared in the net.

These days she remembers a future
when he was no cripple
when there were no wounds
and what he forged did not bind and steam.