Aliens Visit the Islands

There is no leader, so we take them to our women.

They say, "Oh, so you have finally joined the 

universe," and we reply, "Careful, there is one

nation still using Fahrenheit." To say that we 

are wholly impressed by their technology would be 

an overstatement. Instead, a mutual exchange occurs—

they give us teleportation (the key is to ignore 

philosophy when you push the button) and we 

give them white sand, yellow roti, a container 

of sorrel. We push and pull and laugh. Once, 

a misfired ray gun makes a millipede 

the size of a bus. Our children become friends 

with their children, compare the quantity of 

fingers, genital shapes, breathing apparatuses, 

how to say no. Some of them want to stay, some 

of us want to leave. They have never seen one 

sun set so slowly, or how the moon must pull the 

water for itself. They find their bodies transforming 

in our air—their limbs, we tell them, likely exhausted 

from travel. Their eyes cannot stop watering. 

They do not have a word in their language for 

longing, a pain that cannot be chemically excised. 

We guide them to the mountains, the falls, tell them not 

everything is a test. When they leave, they promise 

to tell their people Earth was warm, was Black, 

and cradles its pain in the sea.