When the wells dry up, my mother is taken
to search for extraterrestrials in the desert.
The location, like her real age,
is undisclosed. No fake Prada
stores, no high-
altitude balloon
conspiracies & no reception. The call, in a sense,
ends the moment I try to claim the apple
never fell, never fell at all, from either tree. Aba asserts:
breathe & then warns me she doesn’t like the word alien.
I know this well enough, how my mother knows
well enough, that deserts are not prophecy. Or
a graveyard song for an animal
sanctuary, somewhere far-off,
founded on second-guessing.
Like it ever mattered which
side of a fence or war-
head to the last rhino
left, when he’s blessed with two armed
guards to protect him from everything
but thirst. Over static, I hiss it’s too late to save
face. What they must think of you, when your best
technosignatures are smog, sulfur dioxide, stampedes
in open-air stadiums. Is this how you’re found
amid the darkness? Is it enough?
Would you not exist if you lived
unseen? While my mother rises & falls into sky,
I repeat how humans have changed the destiny
of this planet. Aba cries out: breathe.
He mistakes this for atonement
& fires back:
how wrong
the foundations here, like those
in supersymmetry, are stacked.
How you built your wells & havens
so inaccurately that your ultimate
capability is never being proven
wrong. I won’t ask for forgiveness
when Aba searches for his place,
again, among you. Was it enough
to believe the apple
would never rot from a lack
of rigor. When did you stop asking
for the math? & when the rhino turns
into a golden calf,
what will tarnish
& unearth your base
metals? What will you
do when your alloys
sour & gasp?
I hold my breath. I trap
his wrath. The heart continues
to track. Aba falls silent when I switch
off every tap & highway, render complete
darkness. The last of you continue
to gaze up, for no reason
you will recall. You shiver & open
mouths wide, for what was precious
& pure. & I
no longer pretend
that I ever breathed
any part of it,
this future you pooled
together, the way a single drop
of water relies on surface
tension. I won’t ask forgiveness
when giving away exact coordinates
& next destinations. Don’t be afraid.
On the surface, we aren’t unlike one
& the same. It’s just you are the reason
you’re already gone.
& I’m here to stay.
Source: Poetry (December 2019)
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