The horns
         of a bull
             who was placed
before a mirror at the beginning
                  of human time;
                     in his fury
at the challenge of his double,
                          he has, from
                            that time to this,
been throwing himself against
                              the mirror, until
                               by now it is
shivered into millions of pieces—
                              here an eye, there
                             a hoof or a tuft
of hair; here a small wet shard made
                         entirely of tears.
And up there, below the spilt milk of
                    the stars, one
                  silver splinter—
parenthesis at the close of a long sentence,
             new crescent,
         beside it, red
     asterisk of
Mars