Venus in Transit
April 15
By Jim Dunn
©Bing McGilvray
Venus in Transit
6/6/12
“but occasionally at her inferior injunction Venus passes directly
across the disc of the Sun, the phenomenon being known as a Transit.”
—The Sun by Young (As quoted in Harry Crosby’s Transit of Venus)
The first light of morning slants across the trees
From the steamy shower window
After days of unending rain
A line of sparrows sits on a fallen rod
from the ruins of a makeshift hothouse
A folded dollar this day hidden
In the crevice of a secret window
In hopes that a wanderer finds it
and divines its provenance.
Six in the morning on six/six
on this the longest day
The commuters salute skyward
on this elevated platform
Sun unblemished overriding the morning
After the Transit of Venus twelve hours
before six on 6/6/12
A small black dot moving across
the fiery face of the day
Clouds that shrouded the journey
now succumb to the shine
Blazing proud without filter
or shroud the sun
Next train to Boston
approaching in six minutes
As luck would have it
The decorated day is dotted
with sixes and shadows cast
From the dance of the train
as it arrives in a cloud.
Jim Dunn is the author of This Silence is a Junkyard (Spuyten Duyvil, 2022) Soft Launch (Bootstrap Press/Pressed Wafer, 2008), Convenient Hole (Pressed Wafer, 2004), and Insects In Sex (Fallen Angel Press, 1995). His work has appeared in Castle Grayskull, Blazing Stadium, Can We Have Our Ball Back?, Bright Pink Mosquito, The Process, eoagh, Gerry Mulligan, Cafe Review, Meanie, and the anthology tribute to John Wieners, The Blind See Only In This World.
The first light of morning slants across the trees
From the steamy shower window
After days of unending rain
A line of sparrows sits on a fallen rod …