When Haley's Comet Tore Through The Night Sky

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                                                                                                                       First Published by The MacGuffin

no one noticed it journeyed on borrowed time. 

Not the astrophysicists. Not the children 

who glimpsed eternity through telescopes. 

Not the plastic bags that danced in wind. 

Not the waves that sculpted the earth 

or the oil rigs that fueled and boiled it. 

Not the lilac blossoms that scented the April air. 

Countless ripples in spacetime could have 

veered it off course. Or caused it to waltz by 

our sapphire planet a year later. 

It could have been a stormy night. 

We might have missed it as we curled our tiny bodies 

in a sleeping bag under our galaxy’s gossamer quilt. 

When I see Halley’s again as an old woman 

I’ll wonder: if leukemia hadn't snatched you 

when you were nine

                                      & we still walked side by side,

would we notice we journeyed 

on borrowed time?