The Moon’s Magnetic Field Once Came from an Asteroid

When you walked in
it was like recognizing
 
the moon when he returns.
His lover bites his cheek; she
 
has no choice. All we see
is the dissolution, then await
 
the reconstruction.
Each time, the sky
 
yanks her into his orbit.
I want to say I’m sorry.
 
I want to say
You win. Our bodies are like
 
the confessional booth these
poems are stuck in. Even
 
the priest can see that sin.
You’ll be all spit and honey—
 
or maybe I’m the poisoned
flower gnawing on its own
 
lip because it has no hands
to reach for you. Only words
 
that are as useless as the pollen
for saying anything. I continue
 
to serve them even with your hands
around my throat from across
 
the room. Your voice is home,
I answer it like a bat guided
 
across the atmosphere. This
is a narrative that cannot end
 
well but wants to, but must.
I’ll continue to go down kicking
 
and you’ll be sweet as anything
until you bite back. No, it can’t
 
end here—we won’t let it.
Billions of years have passed
 
since an asteroid last hit
the moon: clearly some
 
magnetic fields can be sustained.

Copyright Credit: Rebecca Morgan Frank, "The Moon’s Magnetic Field Once Came from an Asteroid" from Sometimes We’re All Living in a Foreign Country.  Copyright © 2017 by Rebecca Morgan Frank.  Reprinted by permission of Carnegie Mellon University Press.