Venus of Willendorf at the gym

By Merie Kirby

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.

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