Botticelli My Way   His legs scroll round me like a question mark. I tickle him: he yelps, and rolls away – Or would, except I’m pinning down his arm as it were a football. Which makes me a five foot nothing quarterback, and him a very weak gorilla. Happy though. In fact he’s back – and judging by the view, I’m shoulder-wrapped again. As for the hand that’s drifts about my body, quizzical? Well: male of course. A forelimb, rather large – And suddenly he’s strangered:                                                 Pull away. Stark naked as I am, it’s up to me: a midget Venus, new-born, rising from – Okay, I’m short of clamshells; it’s a bed. I mean it though. Look, I’ve been born before and – well, I didn’t like it.  So my clam is metaphorical, and stops half way with just my head and shoulders peering out.   Me, I’d be cautious: check horizons, wind. And scrutinize those Botticelli waves; they look like wrinkled bed-sheets. Only then would my hinge open – slow, expectantly. And when I walked that strangely flattened sea I’d do it openly, without the help of those disguising tresses: they’re not me. I’d step out of my clamshell worry-free, and dive into that fish-fast, quick-flash grin. Kathryn Jacobs

If you have any comments on this poem, Kathryn Jacobs would be pleased to hear from you.