Intra-Venus

The aeroplane he hears

that skirts the valley every night

with mirror-masked identity

and motive shrouded out

each time provokes a twinge,

the stinging flesh-ghost memory

of protection from disease

and needles stabbing in.

The tethered bloodless wince,

a decade on, is gleaming sharp.

The tiny wound grows pink

in spirit, if not yet in skin.

Though no one in the little town

confesses to be witness

to the dreadful nightly droning

of the ink-and-ether craft

(being far too well-acquainted

with their neighbour's nervous habits,

how the silent social curfews

aren't applicable to him),

the familiar clinical pinching

like a firm parental squeeze

in some abstract way assures him

maybe all will soon be well--

that no matter what this visitor

could want in looming solitude

or why it scours the town

and flashes signals up to sea;

at least, if he's uplifted

for some grand celestial plan,

it's a gamble without illness 

thanks to needles stabbing in.

So from all the beastly germs

that habitate the swollen galaxies,

he's free - so beam him up,

ex memorias, I.V.