Venus Born

She walks to the water, some combination of immodest modesty, looking forward I think to the anonymity and cover of the ocean.  


Walking along the hot beach, it's as if she stoops against bumping her head on the invisible floor above--the life level where she's expected to participate in the world she's only now just learning about (and doesn't really like all that much from what she sees), where expectations hinge on book covers,  where grown men will no longer just wish she were a little bit older so that looking at her wouldn't be so wrong.


He watches her walk believing completely in her ability to navigate outside the ocean's water--he's seen her act a million parts in and out of the waves--the one where she plays at tragic circumstance, put-upon by unjust events and biased third-parties, milking applause for even more sympathy; the one where she takes on aggressive words and deeds with action, vocal and physical, of her own; and the one where she pretends to be dead, afloat in the sea foam.  He only marvels at where all this ability comes from, but never wonders whether it will make a difference and keep her afloat.  It will be enough; that much is certain.


If  he could he would give her wings to fly above it all and leave the beach behind. That is all false hope though.  It is not for him to take her away from it or even to buffer the waves.  His lot is the one he threw in for a lifetime ago; to witness.  To see the leers turn to shame realizing her years.  To see the ones that don't.  To see a cousin look up at her and realize how tall she is, how straight she stands.  To see her step aside sometimes and march right in at others.  


He sits and reads his book.  He is a witness.