In the pre-dawn darkness, Comet Hale-Bopp bleeds
majestic against the Port Enyon sky
waiting for no one –
not the builders of Stonehenge,
not the Apostles of Christ,
 
not even Charles Messier, comet chaser extraordinaire,
the tenth of twelve children.
And so the dead siblings take up their places
in the eyes of the living man
with deep-sky objects, nebulae, star clusters, galaxies,
 
(Messier 1 all the way through to Messier 110)
while drunk clings cautiously to drunk
and the dancing girls disrobe
in the city of Swansea
as the lay-preacher and seer predict the end of the world.
 
The sand in the shoe warms the foot,
a cold Atlantic wind coils across the peninsula
drawing the eye inwards,
back to the fog of desire, sorrow, shame,
the insistence on forever.
 
Now, those of us who lie awake in the night
watching comets,
listening out for the sound of our own heartbeats,
must learn how to sleep over
as we dress again for breakfast, turn out the lights.