Comet

(To be read as quickly as possible, in as few breaths as you can manage.)

I’m a spinning, winning, tripping, zipping, supersonic ice queen:

see my moon zoom, clock my rocket, watch me splutter tricksy space-steam.

I’m the dust bomb, I’m the freeze sneeze, I’m the top galactic jockey

made (they think) of gas and ice and mystery bits of something rocky.

Oh I sting a sherbet orbit, running rings round star or planet;

should I shoot too near the sun, my tail hots up: ouch – OUCH – please fan it!

And I’m told I hold the answer to the galaxy’s top question:

that my middle’s made of history (no surprise I’ve indigestion)

but for now I sprint and skid and whisk and bolt and belt and bomb it;

I’m that hell-for-leather, lunging, plunging, helter-skelter COMET.

Kate Wakeling