Goodbye, Aphrodite

Hopeful, she smothered her incongruous wants under
the certain verdict of nature. The double-helix
catalogued exactly, its 'norms' and 'deviations'
gelding the women who swallow each other, muscled
lovers, XYs with jutting breasts. She kept her legs
shut. She papered the parlour in tiny rosebuds, aligned
precisely on each adjacent sheet. Girls should be girls,
and boys, boys; she knew Aphrodite was a softly-
spoken passive fuck in 10-denier and high heels.

On Mayday, she had her nails done, introduced
a razor to the parts that didn't show. The maiden
veil threw her tempting silhouettes, willow-
waisted bridesmaids, girls with come-hither curls.
She clasped her thighs tight. Breath held for Vera
Wang, she exchanged her name for a kindly smile
with steady arms. He was off-the-rack,
the perfect manikin; daily-bathed, black-tied.

Autumn stretched over the rooftops; the city wilted
under paper-thin grey rains. The billboards showed
sisters with dying eyes, smacked-out spinsters
whose worst crime was losing their looks.
The parlour darkened on Vera Wang, stiff-hanging,
a discomfited ghostly bride. Aphrodite sighed,
slipped off her stockings, reached for the lotus shoes.
Upstairs, he sat in salty bathwater, bemused.

Alyson Dayus is a feminist academic by day, and a feminist poet by night. Previously she was a dancer, but gave up after realising she couldn't see past her false eyelashes. She has previously been published in Lily, Poems Niederngasse, Rock Salt Plum, Sein und Werden, Verse Libre Quarterly, and Wicked Alice. You can visit her on the web at http://www.flinched.net.