The door is open just a shade to the dark.

A skimming quaver of a black hole

seeks a place on the sand

just vacated by tide.

A cape settles with a flourish just beyond footsteps,

on puddles that saturate it a cloudier ink.

Even those whose awareness of sentient

things have been sanded down to cyborgs,

puters that think they are human and vice versa,

know a stick has been shoved in between spokes and snapped.

Harsh breath tops the boots that scarcely

imprint the cape mat, unused to the heavy air of earth.

The black hole that will serve as a base

filtered sand from the air being inhaled.

Animation is clunky. So much restricted

that they don’t even know their own land

due to their handicap.

Recruits were the mission completus.

People don’t pledge allegiance to vapor.

Worship yes, but not zeal. Time did not yet allow.

The worship will follow.

- - -

Paul Handley spent a career as a student and a student of odd jobs. He has an MA, an MPA, and is ABD. He has driven a cab and sold meat door-to-door. Paul has work included or forthcoming in Apollo’s Lyre, Boston Literary Magazine, Ophelia Street, Poesia and others.