The Wrath of Other Days

What we really want is Earths,

An astronomer noted

Of exoplanet searches.

Oh, yes please, give us more us,

Show us more might be like us,

Malign intelligent life.

We eagerly support you

In your accelerating

Search to find another Earth,

But maybe not out of hope,

Maybe more desire to stay

Forewarned, if not quite forearmed.

If your observations take

A turn for the ominous—

Thousands of Earth-like planets—

While alive we’ll brace ourselves

For the signs they’ve spotted us

And sent out delegations

Of their own intelligence,

Samples of whatever wrath

Burns through other, Earth-like days.

Acervator

The shock of something incoming
That matches what’s inside your head
That hasn’t been matched in some time—

Recognition, sweet deception—
Your brain sings, I’ve been here before,
But that’s not actually what gives.

You were never in this courtyard,
Never under these exact stars.
It was another year. Planets

Reflected different perspectives,
And your bare toes on the warm stones
Had other living cells, other

Signals to other thoughts loving
The pleasant touch of similar
But different bits of blown sand.

Think how many times the courtyard
Has been swept in the months between,
How your acervate memories

Have tangled, grown, and shed their spores.
You have not returned. You have not come back.
You’re a close match for more lost world..

Forecast

Sometimes, you’re just
Drifting in thought
About the past,
But it’s so soft,

Your memory.
The past crumbles
And episodes
Shift easily,

So easily,
You realize
Now you’ve begun
To imagine,

To shape the clay,
Remembering
The future shapes
You're making up.

You Have to Remember the Future

In one poem dream,
A fish swallows
Another fish
Whole, head to tail.

There’s a hissing
At the surface
Of the water
As you watch it,

The bigger fish
Jerking its head
To get the whole
Smaller fish down.

You imagine
What the small fish
Might be thinking
Is coming next.