Owen Lucas – 323

Rimbaud : VÉNUS ANADYOMÈNE

A woman’s head, the heavy pomade in its
Brown hair failing to hide its alopecia,
Rises slowly and senselessly from the
Green coffin of an old zinc bathtub ;

Then the grey, bloated neck, the great salient
Shoulder-blades ; the back, which undulates
Down to a long curvature about the kidneys ;
The fat under the skin seeming to form flat sheets ;

The spine is a little red, and it all gives off
A disturbing odour ; often, one notices
Singularities one might examine under a glass—

Two words carved in the lower back : CLARA VENUS ;
The whole body shifts and tends its large rump,
Where it is beautified hideously by an anal fissure.

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I am a
British poet living in Norwalk, Connecticut. I grew up in rural
Cambridgeshire, and began writing as a student at the University of
London. My work has featured in Petrichor Machine, The MacGuffin,
Psychic Meatloaf, Lines & Stars, Third Wednesday, You Stumble into a
Room Full of Poets, Whisperings, Pacifica, RiverLit, Electric Windmill
and Clinic, with poems soon to appear in Vector Press, the James
Dickey Review, 94 Creations, North Chicago Review and Clarion. My
first chapbook is forthcoming from Mountain Tales Press.