Venus Burns

Lore Graham

 

Sol’s love is divine! Today that love manifests as

cataclysmic solar flares, frying circuits in sunshine

harvesters and transforming them into magnifiers.

Centuries of infrastructure sublimate into caustic

black smoke, billowing through the farmland,

swallowing golden fields and pastel cottages.

 

Sol’s beautiful second child, we call our planet,

the most populous and prosperous of worlds. But

where yesterday sunlight streamed in through my

windows, infernal haze now clouds the panes,

reeking of molten metal and burnt hope, daring

me to hold my breath, to drag out the agony—

 

***

Lore Graham is a queer author of speculative poetry and fiction who lives in Massachusetts. Their poetry has been published in Strange Horizons, Liminality, and Mythic Delirium, among other venues.