Vitriol of Venus

By Morven Gow

Circling gently, shyly
Smiling. 
Uncertain how to relate. 
How to experience their union. 
A testing of boundaries.
Considering weaknesses 
which the other might exploit. 
Use against.
As so many others have. 
Scared they’d melt, too, 
one into the other. 
Disappear. 
Or perhaps a loving corrosion 
revealing 
Shining selves awaits. 
Perhaps.
Who knows? 

The armour is strong.
They are made impervious. 
And so they embrace,
Trusting, finally. 

A soft corrosive caressing. 
A quiet insistent rendering. 
Strips, burnishes, renews. 
They bond, 
not through hateful corrosion
Or through devouring each other with the old alchemy 
hard learned in the past. 

No vitriol of Venus between
golden sun and green lion. 
No devouring here. 
But oh the joyful heat 
when they bond and bind
Gold and green
Heat and passion. 
Cleansing, purifying,
Burnishing gold flecks the green
Becoming aquamarine. 

Rebirth, renewal,
Reborn with each bonding. 
Golden sun and green lion
Forever.