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Venus

Second daughter of the sun,
Holst imagined peace in your embrace.

Without a moon of your own
you thirsted for the man
to caress your cloudy tresses
with cellos and rapture.

But without his fantasy
he could never survive your
pressure, such peerless heat
dripping sulfurous sweat.

Volcanoes erupt and
recarve your surface again
and again until they render you
unrecognizable.

Yet Gustav dreamed of you,
and in the lies one’s mind
spins while sleeping

he saw you not as you are
but as he wished you to be:
tender, resplendent, radiant.