DOUBLE SIGHT — Summary

An aberration in my eyeglasses gives me a tiny bright star next to Venus, down and to her right, as if her hand is curled in a fist, slightly raised.

I like to think of Venus with a fist—a soft Tai Chi fist with all the strength of exquisite balance behind it. Love-and-Beauty smiling a lazy smile, knowing that hate-and-ugliness is nothing but a nattering nuisance, a foolish foe with no notion at all of her power.

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The speaker notices a small glitch: because of an imperfection in her eyeglasses, a tiny second star appears beside Venus, low and to the right. To her, it looks like the planet's hand curled into a slightly raised fist. Instead of being annoyed by the distortion, she plays with it.

In the second stanza she imagines what kind of fist this would be. It isn't a threatening one, but a soft Tai Chi fist, powerful because it is balanced and calm. Venus, standing for love and beauty, smiles lazily, relaxed and unbothered. Hate and ugliness become a "nattering nuisance," a foolish enemy that has no idea how strong she is.

The mood is gentle, amused, and quietly confident. The speaker turns a flaw in her vision into a small act of imagination, and in doing so she suggests that love and beauty don't need to fight hard to win. They simply need to stay steady.

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