This shows that the two men were intentionally chosen so that only the animals could reproduce. It also seems as if the two men were Earth's last hope for life, but instead of choosing Earth to remain on, they decided to start life on another planet.
From my point of view, the start of life on Venus was not last ditch attempt at man to survive or life to continue. There isn't any mention to the Earth itself dying. I read it more as a grandiose science experiment to see if humanity had progressed to the a divine status by being able to replicate the start of life on a different planet. The line "VENUS IS GREEN" was received with jubilation on earth with parades and excess. Maybe, these two scientists were mean to later be joined and an entire colony would be established on Venus, an Earth 2.0 so to speak . However, in the aftermath of the man made apocalypse, I feel the tone of the poem switches a lot because the reader thinks more being an attempt to remedy apocalypse rather than start it. If humans were trying to pull of a last ditch attempt to save life, then they certainly would have worked together with other countries, and if the world was already in apocalypse than news of the such a small glimmer of hope would probably not had the same reception.
Humanity is selfish and if life were to be established on another planet, human kind would be the first species to have planned reproduction. I think if this was a post-apocalyptic test, then it would be naive to think that any human would not want humanity to be the primary subject aboard the "missile".
Sexton's oral presentation of the poem is somewhat monotone, but there was a driving emotion behind her voice. She seemed particularly "excited" when reciting "VENUS IS GREEN" as if to emphasize this line, when such emotion doesn't seem to reoccur till the last lines when the fish walks out of the see.
I think Sexton calls her poem a spoof due to the last lines saying:
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.
The fish crawls out of the see just like it did several million years ago. Even though these two PhD's try to restart life, it seems like they just have Venus's evolution on course to work like Earth. Maybe the line will change though. Although maybe not humans, who is to say that the next iteration of high intelligence will not be any better than humans at taking care of the planet. However, with the overabundance of snakes this new fish-land hybrid has a much higher chance of being eaten than the first time around.
Finally I think it is a spoof on human nature how the absolutely enormous miracle of science of life on another planet is greeted with a nuclear holocaust. Sexton is simply laughing at the idea that if man doesn't have it, no one can. And these jealous other countries decide that the annihilation of the planet is worth not having a single other country's scientific experiment.
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