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2022 Academy of American Poets Prize

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Primavera 

by Lydia Yawn
 

 

                    After Botticelli

I want to make sense of it upon first glance— Sandro’s intentions trying to evade me. Zephyrus claims his goddess of spring, her future is already in her grasp, rose petals in her skirt— each footstep is new life, giving way to love. Cupid flying overhead, blindfolded with bow in hand—an orange grove of fertility—Venus directly under Cupid’s round belly; she pulls us in, her beauty overwhelming, reminding us of what we aim for but can never truly reach. Graces dance, bare feet in the dewy grass, each looking in a different direction—two face one another, the center looks to Mercury, who is facing away—away from the winds of March and his goddess of spring, past Cupid’s bow and Venus’s beauty, past grace—looking towards anew, a freshness too far for perspective to reach.

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