Above our covers
I promise to keep
you warm
But I am rough,graceless
like a blanket made from
feed sacks and chicken bones
A promise I would fail to keep
while attempting it
On Saturn and Jupiter,
It rains diamonds
In a dream, I floated in a star ship
to the storm of the red spot
Then by accident, blew up
the engine of my vessel
A brief diamond
As failed as a feed sack blanket

[NEW]
Scientists know more about the
                 moon
           than the ocean.

[WAXING CRESCENT]
Light can only dive 200 meters
            down into the ocean.  Below it,
the “Midnight Zone” glows in the dark.  
(By standing in your shadow,
I am hoping to become
                                         bioluminescent.)

[FIRST QUARTER]
Life has a tendency to thrive in hostile environments.  
                                                 ­                        For this reason, Jupiter’s moon,
                                                           ­              Europa, may be able to support
                                                                ­         life within the global ocean of
                                                              ­           liquid water that is hidden
                                                          ­               beneath the ice at its surface.
(This is why I am able to bloom in the dark.)

[WAXING GIBBOUS]
The ocean bows to no one but the moon.  Turn
off the lights.  Turn up the stars.  Low tide wants to
fold back inside itself and lap against the
                             shores of the Sea of Tranquility.  
High tide just wants to be noticed.

[FULL]
But a heated black body sunspot,
                (isolated from the rest
                of the photosphere),
still shines brighter than the moon.  Wolves should
be howling at the sun instead.

at the desk,
a Cytherean lover,
with tobacco stains on his
fingertips —

his affinity for
parchment paper
soaked in bergamot
and sandalwood
left me alone
with the cosmos.

on an eclipse,
a cigar graced his lips…
my favorite trick was
the halos he blew around
the moon.

the constellations were
yellowing notes
by antique tapers
(“years and years,” the
telescope hums),
and the Scientist paints me
another Jovian lullaby.
coffee lives in Starry Night
because of him...

That familiar redolence
as I browse the bookshelf.

From this terrestrial plateau,
Two planets of life celestial,
reach to flirt in that spatial,
One degree of separation;
June 30th and the minutes,
That brought Venus, ever bright,
Close to Jupiter the Rake,
almost kissing, barely touching,
in my version of events.

spinning violently
the roaring rush dampened by
dark infinity