a study of talipes 

1. from an aging gazelle

in dance, your growth is 
celebrated gravely. you become 
a parchment of symmetry. 

to me, she gave some rite 
of scholarly sacrifice. 

it was because of who was living 
on my foot. hephaestus. or anyway, 
some fetal mistake or another. 

but there was no cry deep in the valley 
of the earth when she told me to 
regulate my limbs to the forming 
of pewter 

or, anyway, 
not to dance. 

2. statue of horus

I will say these good things
about that day I wandered the fields
in search of my own face–
 

when I found it, it was a bird.

This is not to say
it isn’t inhabited by
thirty diverse spirits

and countless backstage
mirrors. But to have
the body of a god
of sticks is almost
a golden swamp of a thing.

It’s better to be a bird
in such circumstances.

3. leg exercises

asymmetrical venus forgot to count 
her limbs today. like a spider, 
she is known to transform into a void. 

her hips are an unmade bed. 
she doesn’t know what to name them, 
or if they want to be called. 

there’s a joke in every crevice. 
the doctors don’t know what to do with her. 

there’s nothing here to do: 
pick one side and 
swat the light into it, 
the shelled gnats. 

this is how mirrors work:
the structure, you see, 
involves perfected opposition. 
 

asymmetrical venus 
is wrapped in layers of fine gauze
like a well-respected dead body