Something Like We Did II

Light years in time, ahead of our time.
—George Clinton, “Mothership Connection (Star Child)”

They did not
expect to, nor did they
find us

     beautiful
     despite how much
     we loved to see
     ourselves

          despite the way
          we dressed
          our bodies—

as though both trying
to hide and begging
to be seen. The way

     our hands moved
     when we spoke
     startled them

          and our mouths:
          the animal sounds we called
          laughing     struck them

as a kind of
punctuation
in a world

     whose machinery
     never stopped
     eating

          our lives
          though we
          had made it

though we
worked hard
to maintain it.

     This is why
     they would not
     harm us: our aggressive

          stupidity
          that we could not
          see   was visible

to them     like a halo
of cellophane capping
our heads—which

     appeared to grow
     a restless vegetation
     that we attended

          more than our
          actual lives, which
          seemed to be

what we wanted
to avoid: our fragility
the imminence

     of History    and worry
     about what we called
     the future—

          though it had
          already come

               while we
               averted our eyes

                    and often forgot
                    the constellations

                         between which
                         the Earth swerved

Source: Poetry (September 2023)