We are running as fast as our bodies can move,

Over salt dunes, beach plums and shells,

Wishing that the ships anchored shore-side were come to carry us off,

And not to invade our home.

They are close; these odd beings with their tools, stranger still.

If we’re very smart, we’ll call these tools weapons, because no tool ever meant to kill.

Gulls are crying out; spinning through windless skies,

Telling us of crimson beaches yet to come.

In the low bushes, eyeballs peer out, accompanied by whispers of: “They are coming!
They are coming!”

And so we run faster, faster, faster, and somehow

Our shadows keep pace.

We reach the boulders and dive to the sand, peeking from, looking around, gazing over.

They are here. Aliens. Skin the shade of sea foam and hair the color of

A yellow crab’s underbelly. We swarm together, daring only to blink and to breathe.

We hear a shell crack underfoot. It’s time. With the sun on our backs and the wind to our faces,

We surge over sand-smooth rocks and onto the beach. Aliens are waiting there, too.

It is a trap more skillfully made than any fishnet.

We walk slowly now, and hold out a hand of peace. But the aliens do not want our peace,

They are firing silver stones of fury from their strange tools and screaming and shouting and

Oh, why don’t they go away?

Ah.

It is because we are