The dead girl In the winding shell of the bed Naked of the little wind and flowers Surges on into perennial light.
The world stayed behind Lily of cotton and shadow. It peeked timidly out of the mirror Looking on at that infinite passage.
The dead girl Was eaten from inside by love. In the unyieldingness of seafoam She lost her hair.
Spicer's "Venus" is a short, strange picture of death dressed up as a birth. The title points to the goddess of love, who in myth rose from the sea on a shell, and the poem borrows that image: the dead girl lies in a bed shaped like a winding shell, then seems to drift off into "perennial light." She is leaving the world, but the movement looks almost like an arrival.
The living world, by contrast, is small and shy. It peeks out of a mirror, "lily of cotton and shadow," watching her pass without being able to follow. The speaker stays at that distance, a watcher rather than a mourner who cries out.
The last stanza is the darkest. Love hasn't comforted her; it has eaten her "from inside." Even the seafoam is "unyielding," and she loses her hair. The mood is hushed and eerie, beautiful on the surface and quietly painful underneath.