Tempel 1
by Philip Wolff


(upon seeing NASA/JPL photos of the comet)

Her beauty is the satin
blackness embracing her curves
in shadow, her bed lit by candle.

We came courting within one
hundred miles. From the vast nothing
she's a stone floating on impossible oceans.

We return Valentine's Day, suitors calling.
She has not missed us nor will
care when we fade
across her black horizon worried
for our own blue orbit.






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