“To the Aliens, Letter #4”

To the Aliens, Letter #4

  (Bamboo thickening along the June fence line;
  legs sore after a failed swim)
 

Know that I know — not once did you appear angry.

Not once did you appear sinister, bulky, awkward,

ill-conceived, uncertain, filmy, reckless, ardent, restive,

imaginary, aggressive, transitive, bleary, or rooted — only

a lustrous capacity, your skin gray

but the gray of a glass of water in a dimly lit room,

how it contains and brightens it — here I am,

all that you are not. You’ve infested me

with a ruinous desire. I want you to have been made

less by your contact with me.

But it would appear you’ve become, strangely, more.

Tagged: Book Excerpt, Poetry