Edited by Dava Sobel

With her Cyclops eye, bloodshot from staring
so long at the dark, she's grown tired
of the endless storm of his Great Red Spot,
a turmoil that dogs him wherever he goes.

With her body tidally locked to his, their flexing
churns her surface into a “chaos terrain,”
her albedo fractured as she torques and refreezes
into the broken lines that define her.

Up here, where gods rule the sky, she's nothing
special, one of the many moons he captured,
one more woman collected from the wild
and flower-pressed into myth.

But on Earth, she was Queen of Crete,
and he a bull that lowered before her
the lunar crescent of his horns, worshipping
the very ground she walked on.

Even up here, it's she who possesses
a hidden sea inside,
which, given its salt and warmth,
has the power to harbor life.