If Botticelli Was Wrong by Roma Markle

I found you in that sunset

where the colors weren’t red and orange

but where were lavender fading softly into sherbet

streaking blue clouds along the horizon

the sky behind you already turning a deep purple

glimpses of stars peeking through the atmosphere

I found you silhouetted across a soft autumn night

your rosewood skin reaching for Andromeda

when I found you

your long black hair in box braids down to your waist

swayed in the breeze

mimicking the movement of the trees around you

when I found you

I didn’t think I had ever seen something so beautiful

I thought that Botticelli had gotten it all wrong

that if he was standing here today with me

he would be desperately scrambling to correct his mistake

that the woman who stood before me

had to be the goddess of beauty and love

I watched you laugh as you stood

barefoot in the grass at the top of the hill

you were wearing a loose grey sweater and black jeans

the feeling of serenity washed over me

you

ad come into my life with the purpose of showing me

that beauty still existed

I wondered how my moonlight skin

would look contrasted next to yours

how my tiny hands

would look clasped in your strong and gentle ones

how if I got on your shoulders

and we both reached for Andromeda

maybe we could touch it

let its constellations pour like a fountain into our mouths

and maybe we would never grow old

Roma Markle is an English and Creative Writing major at NKU with a minor in Theater. She has been published for poetry in the Ambient Heights Anthologies, was invited to read at the Kentucky Women Writers Convention in 2018, is a 2019 GSA Creative Writing Alumni, and is published for fiction in Loch Norse Magazine Issue XII. She creates pieces that explore the chaos that is everyday life, emotions and relationships. Her friends can attest that though she often cannot speak a single coherent sentence, she is quite skilled with a pen in her hand.