Atlas and Vulcana

The night moves along awkward, and I sit at the edge of my bed contemplating an even more awkward gravity—the kind that keeps us pinned down or struggling to move, like a butterfly 

pinned in a freshly prepped display case I apparently prepared for us. When I bought it, I thought I’d fold every poem I’d ever written for you into a masterful origami heart, ventricles and valves 

included, promises intact. That was then. Now, the night just keeps moving awkwardly. I’m still at the edge of the bed, thinking about the gravity of Jupiter, wondering how I ended up

 there—barely able to move, weighing 480 pounds. my fault, really. The map left in my jeans, washed by accident, all in fragments. Back on Earth, I think maybe we knew each other in a

past life. A circus in Bulgaria, maybe? A strongman and strongwoman, like Vulcana and Atlas, touring the music halls of 1920s Europe. We carried our own baggage then. Maybe we still do. 

Maybe we carry too much.

The night keeps going. I sit and wonder what’s pushing us apart, what’s holding us together. Maybe it’s a fata morgana calling you with the sound of the right blinker blinking right instead of 

driving straight to us. Or the note left on the pillow in the middle of the night like sheet music for a discordant lullaby. In the dim light from the streetlamp through the window, I can’t sleep. 

I think of you asleep with our boys—shipwrecked against your body, pirates of sleep wrapped around you. I remember being the only survivor washed up on your breasts. How long has it been since then?

 hold out my open hands in the half-light, wanting yours in them. The heater kicks on again for the 30th time. Do you remember Varna, in Bulgaria? When we got stuck on the sea wall and the 

waves came out of nowhere, angry and full of forgotten mermaids? Do you remember how we sang ballads and danced, and the sea purred like a kitten against our feet? I didn’t realize how 

full my dance card had gotten—worry after worry, and so many left feet.

The night goes on. I’m still here, contemplating gravity and love’s trajectory, the energy it takes to reach the moon. I start writing equations to figure out how much lift it would take to escape all 

that’s holding us down. (The stars are closer than we think.) I think about everything this past year—the good, the grace, the heavy that pushes us apart, that somehow also keeps us 

together. And then, finally, I gather all the poems I’ve written for you and begin folding them, carefully, meticulously, into an origami rocket. Are you coming? Hold on. Hold tight.

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Ignition.
Stars.