A crop circle is
a pattern created by flattening
a crop
Some vessel arrives and lays the crop flat, leaves
the soil untouched
These events are deemed hoaxes
chalked up to natural causes
and only the crazy think them
communication, signs from alien travelers
Or think them threat
Nappy stalks of corn singing about a new world order
and who wants that?
I was pubescent and suspicious
in a white-tee too big for me
in a house too big for me even though we were 9 to a room
I stayed awake
watching episode after episode of
Unexplained Mysteries
until the ceiling and carpet made a pact to keep me there
until i locked the door for the sixth time and heard it
click with a shotgun’s sureness.
I knew they were lying
I knew something about the solidity of ships
and uninvited visitors.
If all crop circles are the work of otto warmbier
and the drunk sons of ohioan rednecks then
The five-feet chalk outline is a crop circle
If you blink you will miss them fall so
keep your eyes open until they burn shut
Watch how they land
without
breaking entirely, still
a crop
value
intact.
See how I give
the appearance of a human touch
so much
this press briefing passes for metaphor?
If you believe that we are not alone
then last week’s Black girl
visited the block out of pity, not burden
ahead of the impending wars.
I will not indulge the imaginary
But learn to read it
this language of garbled shapes
coils of chalk
limestone soft enough to speak in
formed from the skeletons of sea creatures
So
last week’s Black woman
asks, Do you believe in signs?
Map the ocean floor
Onto the sidewalk
And drown the fields for me.
JONATHAN JACOB MOORE, or Jon Jon, is a Black Mexican poet and scholar from Detroit. He studied Writing Blackness in the 21st Century United States at Tufts University and is currently living in D.C. Jon Jon is moved by the Black Apocalyptic and indulgent poetics of abolition. His work has been featured or is soon to appear in The Black Napkin, The James Franco Review, The Ploughshares Blog, Vinyl, andWinter Tangerine among others. You can share with him on Twitter @hoodqueer & http://www.jonjonmoore.com.
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