you told me when you found me

orbiting around you—

star-shine-glow, endless

gravity well, tugging,

a soft susurrus of force—

you told me

when you found me you’d keep me for-ever.

it is 2006 and the first messy break-up.

she is so much like me, and so close

we could change places

in the shadows. would you

know if it were me or her

pinioned with the strong arms

of your particle-wind,

slowly stripped

of atmosphere as our magnetic field

falters in the face of love?

in 2007 i am not your lover,

but neither is she,

small gemini, shadow-twin, sower of discord,

both of us ex’s, orbits

too claustrophobic, too similar.

can you tell us apart, even now?

how can it be that i can feel you

this far out, and you cannot

know me, even as you touch

me, hold me to you?

they are clamoring for solar reclamation,

for culmination, for me and you

a unit, something special.

books rewritten now returned

to form, me orbiting, you

shining-star-fire, gravity like a pool

so deep my icy oceans quake

and splinter with the resonance,

with the soft sound of your pull.

will you tell me that you’ve found me

again? will you keep me

until your light turns and your gravity swells

and you swallow the stone of me whole?