Love Song of Pluto and Charon

Here's a love poem I wrote a few years ago:

What can they know of you

or me? They talk as if you were

 

my concubine, following my orbit

with head bowed, three steps behind.

 

No one imagines how we carry

each other’s soul across the river

 

of the divided universe. My blush

is well documented, but not the pleasure

 

we take bathing in the milk of our mutual

banishment. Is our bond science

 

or fiction? Their calculations prove

convergence is impossible. Yet

 

our ice shields are lit with pulses that spike

without ever touching. When I laugh, you

 

feel the breath of snow drops blooming

in the frost, and your tears are butterflies

 

that land on my open palms. Some believe

deities watch and nod approvingly. But

 

from where? Look, even the radiant eye

of Jupiter is blind, a shrinking swirl of salt.

 

There is no above or below in infinity – we both

know hierarchy is a mortal’s dream chased

 

by the tiger claws of uncertainty. And so we float

in our mingled dust, embracing the solar wind

 

and cerulean glow no one sees but us.

published in The Poeming Pigeon: Cosmos, 2020, The Poetry Box