In the amber light of the t.v., you say
quietly, over the screams
of horses and men, I know
that is in me. The splattered snow,
the black branches, the army’s night full
of tremendous torches.
And in my living room, the Roman Empire is still
expanding. Jupiter swelled like this, in a fury
of hydrodynamic accretion, a gorgeous
pod of gas that brought lesser planets crashing
against it with its amassed
gravitational force. This winter you dragged
my childhood dog heavy and wet
from the flooded creek, and leapt across
the current with her firmly
in your arms. I’m afraid of the power you have over me.
But you asked once
about the men I have loved
and rejected. After years of collisions
with other planets,
debris still drifts around Jupiter.
My past is thick as any minefield.
Deep into one southern summer, I lay awake
all night beside a sleeping man, thinking of what third job
I could take
to buy him a car, to save his job, to save
him. And for this
blink of an hour, a thousand
dawns ago, I wanted to kill him.