In the sci-fi movie, plants drifted
through space and took root
in fields outside our city, blanketing
them with a sinister green until they fattened
on cow’s blood and rain. When they ripped
free from their roots and began to walk,
strangely graceful, gliding more than hopping
on those bending tendrils, we knew that fire
couldn’t stop them, nor cyclonic winds
nor prayer. Merciless in their calm, asexual way
they marched on Paris and Rome, we saw them
waving down Fifth Avenue, hideous parody
of Saint Patrick’s Day. We saw them
clustered in Beijing exhaling carbon dioxide
and fluttering like deadly daffodils
until the factories shut down, and gradually
earth grew calm and waters swelled
clean and crystal blue and the aliens began to sicken
because there was no acid in the cold rains to fuel
those bodies raging for silence and the ancient breath of stars.
Steve Klepetar teaches literature and writing at Saint Cloud State University in Minnesota. His work has received several nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Flutter Press has recently published two of his chapbooks, “My Father Teaches Me a Magic Word” and “My Father Had Another Eye.”
