the sun busies itself
highlighting the dust
quietly colonising
cupboard, book and shelf …
a quick flap of cloth
but it returns without malice
assured of its place in a flat
or a repurposed palace
not confined to tabletops
(its meekness is a fallacy)
dust spreads its ambitions
across our pastoral galaxy
collecting the shine
from our insomniac sun
to spotlight the tails of Hale Bopp
at its peri-peri-helion
the kid who scrawls ‘wash me’
in a month-long’s deposit
on your Audis or Kias
might have dust from a comet
seen every 2,533 years
under her UV infused with kale
enamelled and nibbled fingernail
