Wendy Carlisle The 2River View, 6.1 (Fall 2001)

On Andromeda

They know all about us on Andromeda. Denis Johnson

No matter how sly we are, how coy, how our bicycles rust on their racks, our tires release their radial cables, our cars sit in various garages without being started up gathering pollen dust while we travel to work through tunnels, buy our groceries on-line; no matter if we never answer the phone, don't own a beeper, do nothing more than act the fool, pick our celestial noses and beat our dogs, they see us.

Sirrah, Almak and Mirach watch. We are their daytime TV. All my young and restless generally hospitalized children, they murmur, as we flagellate and fancy step under our handmade aluminum hats. They find us funnier than Perseus holding the Gorgon's head, our world is their Galaxy Drive-in, the most distant visible, most risible, of entertainments.

We have no allies on the worlds of the Chained Maiden, only Andromedans observing our affairs. Earth: The Movie, they chuckle as we roll across two million light years, insignificant photons, neither wave nor particle, learning too slowly, then going away.

CoverPrevious PoemNext Poem

2River All is well.