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E. ETHELBERT MILLER 17 My Wife as Venus Those feet of yours— pint-sized, no bigger than bees, how they eat up the shoe leather! —Pablo Neruda, “You Flame-Foot” Shortly after my daughter Jasmine-Simone was born at George Washington University Medical Hospital, I had an interesting conversation with my wife Denise. I recall her holding our first-born child against her chest and mentioning how beautiful she was and how blessed we were. My wife, still beaming, then said, “And she has all her toes.” In many ways this remark told me how deeply my wife had been affected by the shape of her feet. My wife was born with stunted toes on both feet. A very small “fourth” toe created a significant “deformity” which is obvious to anyone who looks at her feet. What attracts a man to a woman the first time they meet? How do you know you have met your wife? Your Venus? One of my mother’s favorite expressions is, “God works in mysterious ways.” My father, when he was alive, always spoke about how there was always someone out there for everyone. One just had to look. . . . Denise claims she knew immediately I would become her husband. We were sitting in my office at Howard University and she was a woman with a poem. If she were an actress maybe this would have been an audition. A chance to stand before someone and try to make an impression. The job interview, the first date, the stepping into a restaurant or bar in a new neighborhood. These are all trips of exploration , a journey into the unknown. It is here where we meet the “other,” the person behind a counter or desk. We try to make a good first impression, maybe we pose, holding our head or hands a certain way. We gesture and laugh. We relax and try to put an end to the staring. So what if it were the Venus Hottentot in front of me instead of Denise? When my wife was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1950, her parents already had two girls. Doctors informed them that an operation on their new daughter’s feet could correct how they looked. Unfortunately, my wife’s parents could not afford the cost of My Wife as Venus 181 an operation. They were also told by doctors that the physical shape of their daughter’s feet would not affect her ability to walk. Maybe no one at that time considered the psychological hurdles my wife would have to overcome. The teasing and staring which is often a part of childhood and growing up. When a man loves a woman he embraces her past and promises her a future. In our society couples like to look good when they are out. Many times things are hidden from public view, or we try to hide them. The issue of the twenty-first century is the issue of privacy. What a person’s toes look like is a private matter. Or is it? What is the border separating the private from the public? A pair of shoes? How has my relationship with my wife been affected by her toes? Do I look at them when we undress? Do I make a conscious attempt not to notice? Was I worried about my daughter’s feet before my wife made her comment? As a poet I try to look beyond the physical. I rely on metaphors, a different way to see things. So an image of a woman opens a door to an idea or feeling, an emotion with color. In my poems I have written about women’s breasts, legs, eyes, and hands. Why the absence of feet? It was Langston Hughes in one of his Simple stories who wrote about the history of black feet. Feet as witness. What about my wife’s feet? What have they witnessed? We imagine what we love. Our eyes shape the physical. Things that are different can easily be ostracized or made marginal. Best to look at something offensive from behind bars or a curtain. We have a tendency to cover, to dress, even to make believe. It is language, however, art, which undresses and challenges our beliefs and values. How do I describe something different? Where are my words? Language? How long did it take us to love our blackness? I think about my wife growing up in Iowa. We are the same age and so there...

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