VENUS COMES TO AMERICA

Tracy Quan

Good morning, 

consciousness – 

Florentine 

Venus, rising 

from shell.

Après moi,

no 

luster.

Contemptuous 

halos

flattering

bleakness. 

My vanity 

exiled 

by Dominican 

fire, preserved 

by patron's belief.

This wall to wall,

real estate beneath 

my Renaissance 

feet. Goddess 

alive

in the modern 

street, what

would she tell us:

To get your polish 

changed 

when it rains? That 

you don't live 

as long as you should?

Savonarola sleeps,

and girls like us 

can make 

a difference.

In a burkini 

of mountain air,

floating 

through 

altocumulus,

she’d swear:

Tip 

cash.

We're all 

migrants.

Tracy Quan (@TracyQuanNYC) is the author of three novels, including Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl. She’s a contributor to Hustling Verse: An Anthology of Sex Workers’ Poetry. Her poems have been published by Love’s Executive Order, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Poets Reading the News.