I ♥ You and Jupiter

—for Kai

This is unmistakably a love poem.
There are the two bodies almost tidally locked
with an invisible center of mass
at the heart of the dance, perfectly still.
Jupiter has a stripe the color of your hair.
It moves Io as it does me
and keeps the plates surrounding her heart
loose and yielding,
the untempered emotion of her core
always leaking out.
Europa has some sway, too.

I am in love with it all:
the curlicued gases cavorting with rocks
and the icy driftwood flowing
into and around and through the frenzied tarantella,
some caught,
some just passing through
on the way to other partners
in the orrery.  We are certainly
the main couple on the dance floor.
Out of the corner of my eye,
I see Ganymede with us
completing the circle:
resonance.