An Elegy to the Venus of Willendorf
After Anne Sexton and Larry Lewis
“Before the village turned against her in broad daylight,
the Willendorf Venus’ thimbleful of gold can be heard even by me,
shrunk by the sun’s wrath.”
-Sybil of Cumae, August 19, 2021
If it means being held
by your faux-fur coat
in the middle of the summer again
I wouldn’t mind to have kept forever
hushed in the eggshell skull boat of my heart
my suspicion of the woolly Roerich moss
which fed you your fame:
the soft-carpeted prophecy would
decay and smell because you simply
could no longer pay
for the moisture people call magic:
Ah, but instead of warning you, even now,
I dare only give hope
to that hushed mad guilt
that I alone may keep you.
When Angels Sing…
After Dorothea Lasky
I take the croissant out of the fridge and
toast it golden—
Golden like
those moments, so many years ago—
when I heard
elected angels sing.
That was before the bagel…
or perhaps it was water…
or more likely, air
I took in
that day—
Golden like
yesterday, when I slipped
out of hell
of empty pizza boxes
and bit into
—not air—
like after hymns
at Addison’s
bar mitzvah
but a roast
beef sandwich,
as the smoke gathers
& I, in rage,
air, and Daddy
wish to burn
them live.
Who?
I don’t dare,
on paper,
to say.
Instead, my mouth
gives steam
in silvery breaths,
ears pass the feigning
plague of others
with dry eyes
as the oven ticks
like my heart
passes time till like
the reflective foil
I shred off
to peel off
the golden skin
hot and chew,
I too,
would turn
cold
in air.
Aftermath at the Foot, Repenting
After Lucie Brock-Broido
Dear Master,
You indulge me too long—let my Rage—
Fester, though it could only end one way, as you know too well—
by bow. The Heel reminds: what is false Gold will grow Green or
that tell-tale red—& the Little Me sought to hold my nastiest Tongue
against every Gastronomical Gnome who spurns me—
to put their son’s heads in the stew for its cannibalistic yum.
Would you ever pray with me?—as I, Medea, branded pageant in a foreign land—
kneel to understand the Strangeness.
Though I complain—you know me too well to know
I’d be the Nightingale should I sing to you:
I wake to the waking night &
I didn’t wish for this all, too.
Tiffany Troy is the author of Dominus (BlazeVOX [books]). She is Managing Editor at Tupelo Quarterly and Book Review Co-Editor at The Los Angeles Review.
The Marbled Sigh 