Beyond the stanchioned velvet ropes,
an ivory backside tinged with pink.
Cupid clasps a cloudy mirror
for Venus.

Mortals pause,
enthralled by her
velvety voluptuousness.

Travel-weary, we vault over the ropes
and melt into the painting’s oil,
ignoring the cries of the
outraged guards.

We say to Venus
Move over, dear, casting off
clothes smelling faintly of turpentine.

Gratefully, we recline. Venus smiles.
Cupid turns, angles the mirror
so that the guards can see

themselves, with
brush-stroked open mouths,
wondering what just happened.

We drift off and dream of Velázquez
in Italy on a working vacation.
Idly he mixes the color
of fantasy-flesh.

He’s thinking,
Come and get me,
Copper! or whatever is

the era-appropriate expression
of the baroque Spanish
Inquisition.

Published July 9th, 2023

Leslie Hodge lives in San Diego with her husband and mini-dachshund. She studied with San Diego’s first Poet Laureate, Ron Salisbury, and co-founded a Poetry Salon. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in publications including South Florida Poetry Journal, Poeming Pigeon, The San Diego Union-Tribune, Sisyphus, Spank the Carp, and The Main Street Rag. Leslie writes poems to try to make sense of her life in a way that resonates with others.

Alen Opsar is a Turkish, Anatolian Armenian, artist and art director based in the US. His work is inspired by the famous French-Cuban novelist Anais Nin’s erotic stories, which include pedophilia, homosexuality, incest and many more sexual taboos in society.