Jupiter’s fire-skinned moon:
ugly as an orange left too long,
molded white and green, her reds
stirring flesh from brimstone
under the planet’s furious eye.
Better to be a turned into a cow
and cursed with a swarm of biting flies
as she wanders some old earth
than circle slowly in this nothingness,
everything in her
burning for grass, slow moving skin,
water in her atmosphere.
Just another lonely body
hanging in the dark, molten
metal heart wanting.
How awful to be someone
else’s heaven. How awful
to be always caught
in your own remaking,
forced to keep turning brightly
to the weight that holds you.
–
Danielle Weeks earned her MFA in poetry through Eastern Washington University’s creative writing program. Her poetry has been recently published or is forthcoming in The Boiler Journal, The Gettysburg Review, Redivider, and Salt Hill, among others.