Tuesday poem #119 : David James Brock : But What Did their Skin Look Like?

Like fine bones of long dead fish placed just-so

on dried out cobs of corn, kernels eaten at an

outdoor dinner on a bygone Earth. I expected black

organs through a lucent shell, rushing plasma

revealing similarities between our species. I remember

a sound on the skin, a wonderful hum that told me

I was about to be taken. The skin played music in

notes mostly like the ones we have. I did not see

bright light. It happened like pond fog. My thoughts

turned banal: the leftovers in my fridge, I knew I wasn’t

about to die (is that oddball?). The abduction was hot—

but you asked about their skin. I was off to be a

curiosity. (Maybe there’d be pain). They were limbless.

I could teach them of hands. Maybe they’d learn

mercy. I promised, I wouldn’t fight back. I smelled

an ease of relenting: a flower with petals I can’t

name, having no botany in the brain tank. Believe me,

I gave up quickly. I thought I’d feel flight, but I sank

somewhere. Nothing else in my time as captive remains.

Sorry I can’t tell you more. You ask me what I do

remember. My first fear was hunger, not their skin of

dried corn…fish bones. On Earth, we could eat them

as deterrence. Now, since I everyone I knew is gone,

please tell me which year I’ve returned to.

David James Brock is a playwright, poet, and librettist whose plays and operas have been performed in cities across Canada and the UK.  His first collection of poetry is Everyone is CO₂ (Wolsak & Wynn). He is co-creator of Breath Cycle, an opera developed for singers with cystic fibrosis through Scottish Opera, which was recently nominated for a Royal Philharmonic Society Award.  
Website: www.davidjamesbrock.com Twitter:@davidjamesbrock.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan