Searching For Venus

He was weary of prostitutes. The young ones were vacuous, their bodies unleavened bread. The mature models scored by the violence of disappointment. Both the naive and the bitter were dull molds. He had dissected women, both old and girlish. On moonless nights carried their corpses, on muffled barrows to his garret. By the light of a hundred candles he had eased flesh apart, nose swathed in verbena drenched rags, hands tweaking tissue, tracing sensuous shapes under dead curves. He hired women of every class. The rich were flattered, vain, the poor always eager to earn. None made the stone blossom. It was a matter of timing, catching her as she emerged from her littoral crest. It seemed his models were always coming to, or moving away from that conjunction. yet he kept opening shells until death took him. At his funeral his straight-backed widow, adorned in darkest weeds, hid her anger well. Despising those cold hands that never knew how to reveal her.