Becoming Venusian - Oct. 10, 2024

I tell myself “don’t fall”

as I leave the house

to walk to my car on a

mid-August afternoon

this year  four large

orange and gray triangles

drape over the backyard

two striped ones on the front

polyester sails to

cool the concrete

to a more modest

second-degree blistering

kind of like practice

for living on Venus

after the desert heat scalds

everything in existence

someday  we’ll walk in protective

outfits between cool dwellings and

if one suffers a bad fall  we’ll have

wearable buttons to request a pickup

assuming those batteries

don’t run out of juice

if they do

I bet cremation will be offered

at a reduced rate

if not free on that planet