On Venus, a day equates
to one hundred sixteen
and three quarters of our own
sunrise to sunrise,
where a world
is conceived: at the threshold
your hand moves forward
to pull up the blinds,
the dust motes hang
without intention of settling —
an orchid waits expectant
for the light
but your hand is still yet
to reach up
but the dust will never fall,
except when you turn away or sleep
or find a friend in a dream
has not only a day but a decade
gone by like rain at dawn
you are not sure what you will find
in the mirror —
a night is long when the drawers
are full and the pages are blank
soon the church bells chime
from down the street
the way each Sunday blinks back fear
and blinks again so that
next week appears
fresh as de ja vu
as you open the door to look at the sky —
looks the same as thirty-two
years ago when you were born,
when you got here from
someplace else,
where a day
knows no real end
and has been forever beginning
mabel lee 