by Lois Bender
Bernini’s Medusa
The sculptor never gave me arms, yet arms
are the first things one imagines, lifting slowly,
hands floating like pale birds, fingers
winging space that suddenly hisses with life.
A mercy, perhaps; to touch is to be bitten.
A finely chiseled head like a smiling speartip
drops between my eyes and tells me yes,
he’d like nothing more than to plunge his fangs
into my wrist, the fat pad of my palm
that once rubbed olive oil into my skin.
Imagine, in some studio cloaked
in alabaster dust, my naked body,
headless instrument of sin, severed
already from its punishment. My thighs
press together, still throbbing with god,
even as my shoulders heave. Hands
flutter toward the empty source of pain,
the weapon, the goddess’s battle bauble. My mouth
opens. The sculptor never gave me words.
Hands of marble batter the innocent air.
Juliana Gray’s third poetry collection is Honeymoon Palsy (Measure Press 2017). Recent poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from Atticus Review, Pine Hills Review, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. An Alabama native, she lives in western New York and teaches at Alfred University.
Lois Bender, a longtime New Yorker, combines her background in art direction and graphic design with personal expression in drawing, watercolor, photography, and printmaking creating a fresh synthesis of styles. Her art illustration brand GardenSpiritsNY Designs grew out of her Retail Gift Industry experience and her love of nature. Bender’s art practice has explored nature themes in gardens at residencies in France and The Hamptons, NY, as well as at Skowhegan and the Women’s Studio Workshop. With a B.A. from Hunter College, NY and an MFA from Boston University, she teaches art and watercolor techniques and exhibits her work in the Metro NY area. She is an Art Professor at Essex County College in Newark, NJ and has an art studio in Manhattan. She is an urban and garden sketcher who celebrates nature in all its poetic and ephemeral expressions. www.LoisBenderArt.com