The Neptune

Et ellu é bellu e radiante cun grande splendore

                    — St. Francis of Assisi, Cantico delle Creature

I heard of one who thought himself too much i’the Sun.

I had to laugh. And blast a billion lethal particles

across your path. You say you want your place in the Sun,

so be it, but know that I am Heaven and Hell in one,

your saintly haloes and your branding tongs,

an inquisition which no atom can resist,

a thirteen million Kelvin kiss. I must admit

I’m one that loved not wisely but too well.

Consider my poor off sprung offspring;

there’s one that’s just been taken into care;

two cold and gassy monsters so remote they never think

of picking up the phone or sending me a probe;

a starlet sucking up my limelight, barring me from all her shows;

a bully bending comets on his knee and tossing them my way;

a red-faced tin pot despot sulking in his rot;

a hellish vixen boiling off each residue of love;

an iron bullet—kryptonite to any star—poised above my heart.

But here she comes: my one success, the fertile fluke,

dreaming in her just-right, just-so bed,

her arm thrown back across her brow.

I mustn’t get too close. I mustn’t be so ardent.

I’ll learn to keep my distance, for now.