Dear Pale Blue Outsider

Just an hour ago we were asleep.
Well, I wouldn’t call it sleep.

It was something, but I haven’t figured out what.

The Chinese were amazing

but they couldn’t control the river.

It was a long metal thing with a dip on the end.

It was this.

Goats in a paradise. Cataroo.

Those were good dreams, sweet

as pineapple. Stood on a chair

and the whole damn thing toppled over,

pulling down a picture.

Grandpa wept.

Sometimes you step off a curb

but the silence wipes out

the entire city. Please, there’s one thing

you must understand about

human life, it’s an obvious fact.
He showed me his collection

of Indian arrowheads.
All eight of them.
He had them in his pocket.

There was laughter,

but it wasn’t guaranteed.

Sometimes these things

just don’t want to be written down.

Listen, I could tell you something

or other about it, but then

you’d offer me a baby aspirin
and I’d be zipping off to Zanzibar.