The missile to launch a missile was almost a secret.

Venus and the Ark:

Old and withered, two Ph.D.’s

from Earth hobbled slowly back

to their empty balloon, crying alone

for sense, for the troubling lack

of something they ought to do,

while countless fish slapped

and the waters grew, green came

taller and the happy rats sped

through integrated forests,

barking like dogs at the top

of the sky. But the two men,

that last morning of death, before

the first of light, watched the land

of Venus, its sweetless shore,

and thought, “This is the end.

This is the last of a man like me.”

Until they saw, over the mists

of Venus, two fish creatures stop

on spangled legs and crawl

from the belly of the sea.

And from the planet park

they heard the new fruit drop.

Anne Sexton.