On the day after the aliens pull
the gun nuts, vote-suppressers, and judges
off our planet in a kind of rapture,
my friends and I tie red prayer flags to
thin trees beside my house. The sky is blank.
Spaceships no longer hover by mountains
no one climbs. Chimes sing in the wind. No trucks
drive past, slowing down to stare at us, old
women in long skirts like theirs, with uncut
hair like theirs. Our men watch Star Trek inside.
We can breathe now. I wonder what happened
to people we knew from work, from the coasts,
to those who thought they were going to God.