Project: Transit of Venus
Chris Price - Fort Venus
Chris Price - Fort Venus
We chase the goddess
round the planet till she falls
exhausted in her seven sisters’
arms. How far we pry, in our
makeshift island hides.
We wholly disrespect
the privacies of sky. When
she comes, draped in romantic
mists, with a diadem of feathers
green and red that scatters
and refracts, we’re ready:
we brandish pen and ink
at first, and then unholster
photographic revolvers.
To the naked she’s fully clad
but our spyglass strips her.
From some she shyly turns
her face, but we are unperturbed —
the spurned set off in search
of other lovers while we take
her measurements with
astronomical clocks and
quadrants. We picture her from
every angle, elevation: a distant
kind of love, or its relation.
In pursuance of His Majesty’s
Pleasure we do not take
sides. We try to listen to
the local guides, even if
their tongues are thick with
unfamiliar jungles. We eat
their greens, record the species,
pick up a few crude words,
some temporary brides, and plant
gunpowder, children and
V.D. The goddess won’t
be back this way for a century
or so, but just now she is at home
on every isle. We seize the day.