Tuesday, July 19, 2022

The Comet

Dancing with the Oort Cloud on the edge of reality,
frozen ballerinas in white dresses of snow
flirting with the stranger from so many miles below,

the comet turns slowly to behold the belly of fire
that eons ago created its nickel-iron soul.
He has been a nomad with a heart of stone

for seventy years and change, a prodigal
who leans inward to a half-forgotten love.
His elliptical dive spins memories in retrograde

as solar winds sweep dust and ice like a valet
into tails of a white tuxedo billowing in the void.
Transformed from old man to dancer come late to the ball,

he sheds skin like a snake, his youthful brain on fire
with hope that gravity will gyre and break his fall.
Surely Lazarus felt this magnetic pull of life

as he stuttered from the cold, dark tomb,
white burial shrouds trailing in the wind
as bright yellow light streamed across his born again face.

~William Hammett


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