from a bad home

walking alone again
he found what appeared to be
for the moment
an altar of snow
which was guilty somehow
of combining itself
with the ring of dark black trees
hoarding the surround
and mistaking the sound
of the turbulence in the clearing
he looked within the snow
and found another ring
of frozen blood lightly dusted and obscured
by fresh snowflakes
as if a gruesome goblet overfilled
had been sat down and then taken up again
and carried off
and that's when the thought he saw
in the distance of no sound
in a ringing
his own naked chest
with two vestigial lynx paws
grown out an angle
and hanging limply

lycopodium

and then the comet came
and the hard beak-like nose
of its crimson womb
gave itself wings
of pale green smoke
in the empty white silence

and was guilty somehow
of combining itself