The Blue Moon Review - Poetry

1 Piece by Jackie Dishner

Botticelli Exposed!

When the famous Sandro Botticelli needed a model,
I made him beg before I would stand naked
on top of that damn fluted clam shell.
"Please," he said, "You have perfect balance and poise."
But I was shy and didn't want to expose
my body's flaws (a long neck and sunken shoulders)
for the Florence nobility to see.
"Didn't you say the painting will be displayed
at a Medici country villa?" I asked.
I told him if I were Venus, I would demand
the zephyr winds bring me ashore immediately,
for I would want that wretched nymph
to wrap a cloak around me quickly.
Sandro ignored me, and told me where to stand.
Unclothed, veiled only by nappy locks, which
the flying winds kept blowing in my face,
I became chilled.
Sandro then scolded me for moving my arms too much.
"Here, tie your hair back with this string."
The poor pale-faced painter couldn't be distracted.
"Why don't you shower me with pink roses
as you do your Venus on canvas?" I pouted.
But he had his nose up in the air-
too caught up with his newly exalted status
as a commissioned artist to notice my suffering.
Holding his palette in one hand and a brush in the other,
he nagged me morning after morning,
"Stand that way,
move this way,
look up, no down,
tilt your head like this,
cover yourself there!"
Finally, the painting was complete.
"I paint you, and every man will desire you!"
he proclaimed, obviously proud of himself,
and I grinned.
"Not you, you idiot. I mean the Birth of Venus!"
My heart sank, and I fell to my knees in tears.
"Why should I stand here like this and be humiliated?
No wonder she looks so sad!"

Jackie Dishner is a freelance writer living in Phoenix, Ariz. She is a former construction magazine editor who, when not busy writing about business and interior design, is constructing her first novel.