Brianna Borrego

Modern Birth of Venus

BIO

Bri Borrego is an essayist and poet from El Paso, Texas. She writes for both creative and technical audiences and her work has been featured in Wacoan Magazine, Art Avenue, and Solutions and Dividends Magazine. She can be found on Instagram @words.bybri or on her website briannaborrego10.wixsite.com/website.

shutter the        vessel of a shell
gather               her waves
of lucious         red curls
and sing a         lullaby
to         drift her away
back                
            into the             sea.

end this emerging
birth of            what would be 

a                      suffocating symbol

an entire planet

a quintessential             gravitational force

for her birth stems
existence of the
tangible            feminine divine,

a woman          who does not bleed

a pearl washed up to shore
awaiting to lose its luster
by human touch. 

let her be swallowed     by the salt.

this is a birth     we do not want
it’s an introduction women have
no argument in.
the beginning of centuries of 

confinement                 cruelty

deprecation      deprivation

a goddess         birthed in chains
covering her nudity
her powers       exchanged
for an intransigent biography,
an academic of which is not her own.

so let her rest    in heavenly tide,
send her away   with requiescence
let venus be confined
by her shell       of ivory chiffon,
not by the disposition of 

first zephyr

then all of man.

© The Acentos Review 2022