An Alien Visits an Earth Psychiatrist
He closes the door behind her.
There goes her last remnant of a chance.
It’s back into the fog of city streets
and their unfriendly denizens.
She has nothing in common with any of them.
Nor the oak, she rests beneath.
Except that its leaves are falling.
And so is something approaching tears.
She took a chance. It didn’t work out.
But she’s not ready to kill herself anytime yet.
The psychiatrist had his theories.
But even the most pointed of them
barely caused her to raise one green eyebrow.
She merely sighed.
Or twirled her head in what passes for a nod.
Finally, he leaned over the desk,
tapped his fingers on its mahogany surface,
admitted that his experience with aliens
was limited to the times she’d been in his office.
The thick tomes on his shelves were useless.
He confessed he didn’t like her chances,
that her remoteness was impossible to heal.
His analogies were always apples and oranges.
“At least, they’re both fruit,” she said sarcastically.
She and the rest of the populace were more
comparable to Quantum Physics and the Salvation Army.
So she left behind the one person who could help
to a world where people could only look at her strangely,
make her feel like plunging right through the floor,
or even the earth.
What could she do but shoulder her purse and move on.
Surprise people. Frighten people. Maybe even sicken people.
She could count her good fortune
if she emerged at the end of the day, unharmed,
for there were plenty out there with a penchant for violence
toward those different from themselves.
At night, she’d look out her window,
stare at the stars, imagine her own planet
spinning somewhere in the dark spaces,
where anything and everything that existed within
was so infinitesimal.
She’d seen a therapist. It was like two voids meeting.
She interacted with the night sky in a similar way.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published work appears in Examined Life Journal, Evening Street Review, and Columbia Review. Upcoming publications include Harpur Palate, Poetry East, and Visions International.
