Oubliette

by Hal Y. Zhang

on Wednesday a space egg

lowers itself on the neighborhood

swing, zero terminal velocity on

invisible gyroscopic wings.

silvery-gray, seamless.

the children throw it around

like silly putty until the

men in suits come and take it

away.

we don’t want it here,

whatever it is.

(there were in fact thousands of its,

but they did not tell us at first)

if they can levitate down to Earth,

shouldn’t we engage nicely?

in the labs they blow craters according

to the rules. always the rules, pages

multiplying exponentially faster so

you never get to the end.

scientists try to read the

smoldering tea leaf

but there is nothing in the wreck.

Breaking: Extraterrestrial Objects Found To Be Marketing Hoax

they show us videos of floating magnets,

so disappointing. that’s all it is. isn’t it?

magnet technology has come

a long way.

my head hurts.

we look back on the swing in our mind eye

but the egg is blurring, like windows

after rains. the water tastes

of the sweetest honey.

we don’t want to look foolish,

so we don’t look

at all.