Venus of Willendorf at the gym

Some anthropologists now say
she is a woman carving herself
in limestone, recording her body as she sees it
looking down, as she feels it when she rests
her arms on her chest. Not fetish,
but selfie. Not goddess, but sculptor. She must
have loved her paleolithic curves. I think
about her at the gym, knees to my chest, resting
between leg press sets, preparing
for another 15 reps. All week I have been looking
for the right weight to press, 170, 180,
190 today. These legs that walk
my Willendorf body around
stronger than I thought.
Listen, body,
I have called you names, and I have wished
you away, in part and in whole, as you
failed me in various ways. There have been
years I refused to think about you.
Now they call her the Woman of Willendorf,
shorn of expectations of fertility and divinity,
made as ordinary as any other artist. I press
the plate away from me 15 times, the stack
of weights rise and fall evenly as breath.
I am trying to make amends.

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Merie Kirby grew up in California and attended the College of Creative Studies at UCSB for her B.A. in Literature. She earned her M.F.A. from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. She lives in Grand Forks, ND and teaches at the University of North Dakota. She is the author of two chapbooks, The Dog Runs On and The Thumbelina Poems. In 2016 and 2013 she received the North Dakota Council on the Arts Individual Artist Grant. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Quartet Journal, Sheila-na-gig Online, West Trade Review, FERAL, Mom Egg Review, Midwest Poetry Review, Avocet, and other journals; she also writes operas and art songs in collaboration with composers. See meriekirby.com.