Orbit

Pantoum poem about a boy.

There is a wolf branded to my arm that is trying to rip its way free but

I won’t let another thing leave me as easily as my mother.  It

is late on a Monday morning and I am thinking about the way

you look in my bed and the way I am positive even

        the sun follows you.

Nothing will leave me as easily as my father, I think, but I have now

               replaced daddy with the wolf that has begun trying to

eat me alive.  I begin to wonder if Orion ever whipped his children with his belt so I think about

you in my bed and the way that the sun follows your every movement--

I want to be the moonlight that filters through your window at late night but if the wolf

eats me alive I will never know if Orion whips his children with his stardust belt.

I will never know why the planets turn around you or why your eyes look like the earth

when the light hits them perfectly, when the moonlight filters through your window late at night

and the stars look like tiny, hemorrhaging holes that Orion pierced through with his bow.

And if your eyes make you the earth, that means I am every single planet that turns around you.

I am the lunar eclipse happening right now; the blood moon that is bleeding and

                 banging her knuckles against the door for you to notice--

why is it that only the blasted and bruised stars Orion punctured with his bow,

                             beat into place with his belt,

get to see you shine like supernovas and I am left in the great, black, gaping void of it all?

I am the lunar eclipse happening outside your window, the blood moon that is bleeding for you,

the umbra of the earth that hides inside itself--I am hiding my fears from you.  There is a

supernova exploding in the sky tonight and I am convinced that is is you.  There is a black hole

expanding in its awake and I am          convinced               that it is                     me.

There is a wolf branded to my arm that is trying to rip its way free and

I am beginning to think that it was me all along.

Author's Note

Any and all constructive criticism is welcome.