Jakob Ziguras lives in the Blue Mountains, near Sydney. His poetry has been published in Meanjin, Australian Poetry Journal, Literature and Aesthetics, and Measure: A Review of Formal Poetry. He was shortlisted for the Newcastle Poetry Prize in 2011 and 2012, and won the 2011 Harri Jones Memorial Prize. He holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Sydney.

Pygmalion

Heifers with gilded horns no longer part before the axe,
in celebration of the rites of Venus; these days no
mythical obstruction dulls authentic pain, her hidden
                                                                               face.

Art always seemed to offer permanence surer than
the fading skin. But I am tired of scraping at a rock
to find the girl within. Here in my garden, beside a pine
                                                                                  tree

skirted by shadow, a youthful form burgeons in alabaster.
Caught in a state of grace, she grasps after the fluency
of air surrounding her entombed appeal. A straying
                                                                              breeze
 
whistles through her fluted curls. Beauty that cannot dance
or kiss. It scares me suddenly, to see my need transformed
into this lissom milk, compacted hard enough to grind the
                                                                                    seed
of dreams; holding my life between her glowing thighs.