a goddess

from the British museum

If it wasn't for the museum with its plundered treasures
I would never have seen this beautiful Venus.
But she wasn't stolen by piratical peers;
Italian born and bred, she passed through dynasty after dynasty
then she was given to Charles I.
Poor beheaded king,
his collection was broken up and sold off
and she found her way into the museum,
where she crouches, more luminous than any other,
her mrble skin seemingly as soft as roses.
You long to run your palm over her luscious thigh
men and women melt at the sight of her
she is more desired than ever.
Goddess of desire,
in an age when everything is splayed out in front of us in gory colour
pulsating and suppurating
her creamy marble-ness is calming and profound.
She makes you belive in love in all its relentlessness
and all its pain
and that whatever hell love is
it is always worth it.