Edited by Dava Sobel
With her Cyclops eye, bloodshot from staring
so long at the dark, she's grown tired
of the endless storm of his Great Red Spot,
a turmoil that dogs him wherever he goes.
With her body tidally locked to his, their flexing
churns her surface into a “chaos terrain,”
her albedo fractured as she torques and refreezes
into the broken lines that define her.
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Up here, where gods rule the sky, she's nothing
special, one of the many moons he captured,
one more woman collected from the wild
and flower-pressed into myth.
But on Earth, she was Queen of Crete,
and he a bull that lowered before her
the lunar crescent of his horns, worshipping
the very ground she walked on.
Even up here, it's she who possesses
a hidden sea inside,
which, given its salt and warmth,
has the power to harbor life.
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