The day the aliens come
the sky will boil over
all purple and gold in
some resplendent royal welcome
for these, our saviors.
And the children of Muhammad
will pray as the
great shiny blue orb
(former image of this planet
our ash and dust home)
wends its majestic way
over desert, forest, savannah
bypassing the castles of Europe,
the skyscrapers of America,
the wide expanse of
sewer-ocean like refuse,
like aged tenement slums.
These creatures will pass
in their great transparent eyeball,
to judge and deem unworthy
all the offerings of humanity
while grown-ups crowd round
televisions and children run
outside, stare upwards blinded
by sun and honest glory.
The craft moves on
as prophets wail and nuns
whisper against that heavenly critic,
silent beyond-here messenger
as it glides south
on butterfly currents and dreams
to colder, clearer climes.
That untouched ice cut
continent where things exist
or don’t-yes or no,
this or that-blue or white
in the wide bright open skies.
The aliens land on glacial mountains
and quietly plan to broker peace
in this, our no-mans-land.

Molly Saunders is a high school student from Birmingham, Alabama. She has served as an editorial assistant for the Red Mountain Review and has been published in Hollins University’s Cargoes, as well as the regional literary magazine Southern Voices. She recently recieved major awards from the NFAA youngARTs competition, and the Alabama Writer’s Forum Literary Arts contest.

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