[Issue 2021.57]

‘Alien Armada’, Mary Soon Lee

Illustration © 2021 Laura-Anca Adascalitei

From the direction of Cassiopeia
they came, hundreds upon hundreds
of hulking pitch-black spaceships
splashing down in the Pacific,
the alien spaceships disgorging
fleets of potbellied submarines—
the world’s nations divided
between pointless posturing
and unconditional surrender,
people praying, panicking—
then weeks of uncertainty,
fear yielding to confusion
as the aliens pursued dolphins,
seals, squid, octopuses, whales,
hurting none, yet still it took us
months more before we dared believe
we were safe, that the Cassiopeians
came from some far ocean world
where the seas are held in common,
where home has no border, no door,
where strangers are welcomed.

© 2021 Mary Soon Lee

[Issue 2021.57]

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