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.

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.