project blue book

1: Joyce

    you can still see the scar
    where the probe entered me
    i was on a table under very bright light
    they surrounded me, murmuring
    their voices leaves in a breeze

    i felt their odd cold breath
    like a taut rope that burned me
    about the chest

    then one,
    like a pillsbury doughboy, came forward
    in rolling shuffle, not a walk
    the instrument looked like
    a cordless drill from home depot
    except more medical than that
    he stared, i think, into my eyes
    but i only heard the surf
    when he pegged the tracer into me

    it wasn't bad, really
    i'm calmer now, in fact
    although pregnant

    her name will be
    aliena, after shakespeare

    nana studied him, you know

2: Ed

    the truck stalled
    that was the first thing and
    it wouldn't even turn over
    however hard I bent the key

    and i bent that motherfucking key
    because i wanted to get home
    to becky

    we'd been married seventeen days
    and i had not got enough
    when they took me away

    that's all

3: Faith

    it was in that open field of grass
    where we would always go

    roger and i were playing toss
    i threw the ball and he raced off
    into the feathered darkness

    then that sharp snap of light
    roger's muffled yelp

    i found his ball next morning
    lodged against the backstop
    near where the ground was burnt

    i still wash and fill
    his water bowl
    though raccoons now eat the food