Venus Takes the Night Shift by Ellie Laabs (Runner Up of the 2025 Online Poetry Contest)
Venus Takes the Night Shift
I’ve been at this life for hours.
Deep within my skin, I feel snow
melt. Melting. What is beyond longing
sits on the sill, ungrown in its pot.
Last known whereabouts gazed
in a window. Now, it seems
what I mean when I pronounce
Love is a river stepped in one
too many times. Who suers
most here, I couldn’t say.
This body, trudged through
many muds, legs like candlesticks,
catching. Acres of afternoons
agonized over the slow plow
of sunshine. You can pass
an eon coddling the one
honest care you gave. Feed it.
Stroke it to sleep. What I know
of loving is uncompensated work.
I place my heart in a small,
gray box. Push my possessions
into the street. There’s something
called Fear and something called
Prudence, and days when I’ve left
my glasses at home, I cry out one,
and then the other, until everything
within range can tell I only mean:
Hold Me.
About the Author
Ellie Gold Laabs was born in Boston at the turn of the century with an east coast sensibility and a penchant for big, and difficult questions. She is now a poet, living in New York with a harmonica and an obscenely full bookshelf.