What if Martians visited us?
Crashed down like the Orwell broadcast?
What would they see?
We think we look normal
though sometimes we say we look odd.
But no humans really look odd--
we all look alike enough--
and none of us really look inhuman
even if we act that way.
Martians probably
don’t look
odd to each other
with their myriad
eyes, colors, proboscises,
heads, skins, limbs,
tongues, teeth/fangs.
Would Martians look
beautiful to themselves?
Or would they find themselves unattractive,
compare themselves to each other,
grieve over looks like we do?
Look scary only because
we imagined, drew,
pixelated them that way?
How would they react
if they saw our eyes, ears, teeth, hair?
Symmetrical unlike Martians.
Watched us run, jump,
make love, defecate,
kill each other
cry tears,
cut our toe nails,
sunbathe, sunburn,
eat, eat, eat—with or without manners--
have to sleep,
want to wake up.
Birth from our Mothers,
bloody mucous,
pray, die
conduct funerals.
What would they do?
Would they kill us like we fear?
Adopt us and take us home as pets?
Suspect what we would do to them?
Is the third hand of some Martian
writing a poem right now:
HOW WOULD HUMANS SEE US?
Originally published in Page and Spine