Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry in Akron, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in Of Rust and Glass, The Museum of Americana, and Quill and Parchment, among others.
Twenty-One
“Women your age have decided/wars and the beat/of poems”
--William Carlos Williams, “Suzy”
No one would ever mistake
you for one of those waif-
like models, those relics
to be found on televisions
and strip club stages,
the “everyman's fantasy”
every man is content
to leave with the remote
or at the door
Lebanese with a left
turn at Ireland, short, strong,
solid. A subterranean passageway
that is also a foundation.
You move and buildings tumble.
It is in your arms, tight
around me, and deep
in the pools of your eyes,
the slight squint that comes
along with every smile.
It resonates
in your voice, high
as a jockey's, and just
as athletic.
It is in your paintings
and your scars.
* * *
I draw you as the Acropolis
upon the half-shell, the birth
of redheaded Venus as done,
say, by Rubens. No knee-length
tresses to cover you, naked
and wet from a dance in a thunderstorm,
a trickle of seafoam
against the inside of your thigh.
Those who gathered to watch
stroke you with fans made
from the petals of calla lilies,
your curves brushed, aglow
in white, red, purple.
* * *
The old saw states
the scars
are the beauty marks
of a life lived,
the badges of honor
from distant wars.
A network thick as cables
come together below
and between your breasts.
What doctors may have taken
is replaced now
with the deep gunmetal grey
of your eyes.
I cannot but kiss your scars
and call you beautiful.
