Surrounded By Aliens
       

Who isn't a baby in a blanket
thrown out the window of a burning house

Who isn't a bamboo kite about to be torn
to pieces by a living, feathered kite

Who isn't a windstorm embarrassed to ask for directions
but also afraid to subside

Tom C. Hunley lies
in a hospital bed surrounded by aliens—
his family and friends but from a different world
from the one where he lies
snapped like branches and then burned
like branches and then overwhelmed
like a small Bame by the soothing music of rain

He's not gone or quite still here but in between
like all of us always in between

Who isn't a house with many rooms
all of them hallways

Who isn't surrounded by aliens
wondering why war looks like love
why love looks like war

Hello hello says the nurse like a question
spat into a telephone
while she touches him and he hears but can't tell her
her touch makes him feel too much
like food that cries each time it's bitten
in a voice like a dog whistle and so ouch
so much ouch but the nurse's beauty
stings, a sunset seen from a prison cell

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Copyright © 2018 Tom C. Hunley All rights reserved
from Here Lies
Stephen F. Austin State University Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission