Rocheās Limit
Dawn Marie Nicole Marfil
You are so still,
like a planet, hinged
on its axis, so sure
of its place
within a galaxy.
I am just
your moon, hanging
upon your every turn
but always
at a distance.
Around you
but never with you,
because if I try to orbit
past 18,470 kilometers of you
I will splinter
Scatter into fragments
pulled apart by tidal forces
for wanting
an imaginary existence
next to you.
It is for this
that you insist
I keep
18,470 kilometers of distance
between us.
But youāve always been
a planet, and I,
only your moon,
helpless against the pull
of your gravity.
Forgive me, love, if I wish
for a splintering
because if a moon ever crosses
Rocheās Limit, it will explode into
a ring of dust around a planet.
Destroyed fragments of
a moon that was
will form an ethereal, eternal
embrace around you;
will turn and twirl with you
in a dance, without
18,470 kilometers of distance
between bodies. It will be the end of my
satellite existence ā no longer
your moon, just simply yours.



















