Aliens
    They have no notion of past or present,
    everything is about oceans.
    When they ask for you
    it is really a story about seeing the ocean.
    VISITOR #1:
    Listen. It is failure of bridges that builds angels.
    GROCERY BAGGER/ COLLEGE STUDENT:
    Is this the depression
    we've all been experiencing?
    VISITOR #4:
    Please have a seat and forget the edge of that coast,
    you were not intended for this distance.
    GROCERY BAGGER/ COLLEGE STUDENT:
    I believe we're all owed an explanation.
    Where is this manifest?
    I've never ridden a horse, I am being dreamed about.
    VISITOR #1:
    You would not believe
    the stories redwoods have.
    You each get one phone call.
    GROCERY BAGGER/ COLLEGE STUDENT:
    But the voicemail I've been trying to reach,
    all morning,
    is full.
    "I dream of psychiatrists telling stories
    about dreaming of women
    they've seen in unedited videos on the internet.
    Sometimes they save her from that burning nightclub."
    VISITOR #2:
    If you're going, leave your voice
    somewhere in a room I know.
    COLLEGE STUDENT:
    We would have no need for phones if you didn't invent distance.
    VISITOR #2:
    There are trees that become stained with a purple blossom.
    During summer the blossoms fall and shadow around the trunk
    like a violet negative.
    What a beautiful dimension that must be.
    They pull her skirt down to examine the body,
    palms pour from a sidewalk in L.A.,
    everything is cracked-
    "My god she's beautiful, huh?"
    I think I met them before,
    a long time ago.
    THE MEMORY OF A VISITOR APPEARING IN A DREAM:
    What happens next? Come the exit of electricity from the body;
    on a long enough time-line all weather radicalizes and the people
    will grow into trees.
    You can read about that hollowness and never be prepared for it.
    It’s like standing on the edge of an overpass,
    and being completely empty of the urge to jump.
    This is what I remember:
    instructed to reenact creation
    she throws clothes
    from an open window above the 60 freeway.
      "You have to imagine there are people,
    surrounding you and talking"