Visitor from Venus on Earth
— Prince Bush
It was 800 degrees on the winter solstice.
The sun set twice a year, a day
Felt like livermorium: no moon, & the ocean
Had boiled to space. The carbon
Dioxide made me drinkable bone
& crushed by the weight, no one
Could see past the sulfuric-acid-droplet
Clouds, its skin reflecting sunlight.
I saw nothing, but knew blindness
Was not ignorance—custom to course
As if looking through the elbow
Of a rubbery, melted glacier’s crevice
On the second shiniest object in the sky;
The warm globe sunk my echolocation,
& the whole physics of sound around me.