I think by request I'm going to read [CHUCKLES] my only sci-fi
poem.
[CHUCKLES] And it's called "Solitary Animal."
And it's a--
I call it a free villanelle, sometimes.
Yeah, I just--
I write in perfect form, and then I do variations,
and sometimes the variations are more
interesting than the formal version of "Solitary Animal."
The solitary animal walks alone.
She has no uterus.
She has no bone.
She slithers around dark bars and libraries.
She carves a beautiful girl on the cave wall,
dances with Aurora Borealis, but goes home alone.
We are 7.5 billion.
Thrust onto earth together, we are not alone.
We shout at the stars, perhaps a Martian
is listening, she, he, they, with 10,000 antennae,
transversal labia quivering, searching for love.
Your half-drawn monolid eyes are most tantalizing,
may I take you home?
Slime you with a green kiss?
Breathe magma into your bones?
Claw rainbows onto your lips?
Redecorate your home?
Our vertebrae are vibrating, signaling we are not alone.
Sacrificed by a greedy admiralty,
we shall be devoured head-first by reptilian clones.
Inch backward into your fern pods, why don't you?
Baby, I call you, but you are not home.
Somewhere in the cosmos, our lies are reverberating.
Fake news is sad news.
Shrapnel calcifying into bone.
Each day we begin on earth as a dying person,
each breath is less than yesterday, we shall die alone.
Well, that's--
[APPLAUSE]
--pretty bleak, right?
[CHUCKLES] OK.
I feel better now.
[LAUGHTER]
I think there are Martians out there, after all.
And they'll save us.
[CHUCKLES]