A quick bang in the dark
innocent as the tequila worm
she licked from Mars' red skin.
His bodyguards, Phobos and Deimos
swear he's been sterile for millennia.

Even with binoculars, Pluto claims
all orgies look alike from his place.
Saturn feigns blindness. His platinum
rings state he has eyes only for passing
comets, undiscovered male planets.

She likes to think Mercury fathered
her children. His volcanic eruptions
still excite her. He never drank during
their orbits together. She still
wishes he would divorce Sun.

Neptune and Uranus strut in blue.
Their iciness melted into her oceans
after that third shot of whisky.
Jupiter bulged at the equator
every time he offered her sweets.

Venus shines night and day.
The smug bitch has set every
celestial body on fire with her
sulfuric lapdancing, cheap tricks
of a woman with weak magnetic field.

Earth shakes her lands in disgust.
Everyone avoids her now, the single
parent burdened with flora and fauna.
She suspects her analyst, that invisible
prick who insists he is God.

Copyright © 2006, Arlene Ang

Image Credit: NASA/Pat Rawlings

Arlene Ang lives in Venice where she edits the Italian edition of Niederngasse. Her poetry has been published in Envoi, The Pedestal, Rattle, Smiths Knoll and 2River View. Her first full collection of poetry, The Desecration of Doves, is available through Amazon and Barnes&Noble.