Aliens

They have been here all along,
not Andromedans or even Mexicans.
They conduct experiments on their spouses,
abduct their children,
drive the whole family
to Disneyworld on vacation.
They build slab houses and gated estates,
five-star restaurants and liquor stores
with drive-thru windows,
not pyramids or sidereal stelai
or interstellar bridges.
If they were telepathic they’d know
we don’t need mind readers, that each
of us is the other, they’d know
their own shadowy thoughts


 

Stephen Bunch received the 2008 Langston Hughes Award for Poetry from the Lawrence (Kansas) Arts Center. He also is a recent Pushcart Prize nominee. From 1978 to 1988, he edited and published Tellus, a magazine featuring work by Edward Dorn, Jane Hirshfield, Donald Levering, and others. His chapbook, Preparing to Leave, was published in April 2011. His long poem, “Second Life,” recently appeared in Mudlark.