Joy V. Sheridan writes

Aphrodite

Aphrodite swam with the seals

with the dawnlight in music marbling the waves

with the veins of the silence of isolation

over there, behind the rocks,

her garments strayed to the sun

with little mother-of-pearl shells hanging

from the home and stars embroidered

like deep sea sponges

and crescents and full moons

where her breasts filled their cups

when she put on her garments

and a comb was tangled with seaweed

and green little crabs crawled on

pink bellies and left their sweet sea smell

and there was a smell of a perfume on the winds

like roses from a piece of unwritten poetry

As Aphrodite swam out in the distance with the seals

and a shaft of light lit up the headland,

the cliff was caught as Apollo saw Aphrodite

swaying over the humming cones of the waves

and shells blew in the wind with the music of bells

And he, taking in his hands a flute

reeded out to her a poem of her beauty

within a cave he sat, and played and sang and

far out on the sea

Aphrodite swam with the seals and the shells were peeling

Shells were peeling and overhead

the seabirds in orison flew in arcs and circles

till that voice lilted upon the foam white

and the emerald green and the wine dark sea

Aphrodite turned to the place where the Sun shone

from the cave of green father

when night-time drifted her sleeping mind
and rare the words that whispered

in humbled silks by rivers of Lethe

and she swam inwards unwary and unsure

drawn to the reefs and the oleanders

that bent

towards the flames of the moths and winds

and butterflies within a flame that gleamed

and Apollo looked sweetly up and smiled

as he touched her cheek with his hand

and let her to the setting sun’s most

glorious boon