Maybe on Other Planets

That time at an intersection when I pressed my palm to the steering column

to bleat at a man taking up too much of the pavement I wanted. How as he

turned left, & I turned left, he made eye contact with me, & I made contact

with him, & I thought maybe, at that very moment, there might be others just

like us somewhere else choosing not to behave like this. People on other

planets who don’t think of the dirt beneath them as territory-able, argue-

about-able. People on other planets born without the deep-seated desire to

complain, to cajole, to get what they want—if they’re born at all, that is, if

they don’t just appear suddenly on a sidewalk & learn to live by watching

strangers live, & in this way everyone becomes more or less the same. Or else

they are born, & they do have things to complain about, but they haven’t

invented it yet, haven’t evolved the amalgam of stick-to-itiveness & desire

that breeds in the bellies of the beings of this world. Or maybe they do

complain, & are so much worse than us, which, of course, would be worse for

us, having other solar systems to point to. Maybe there are other galaxies

playing films of our galaxy’s mistakes on repeat & learning what not to do, or

what to do instead. Maybe somewhere else they are watching the good we do

& laughing; maybe they are watching everything else we do & mistaking;

except that maybe even on other planets the good in all of us is so much

warmer than what is broken; maybe on other planets babies are born in

reverse & become tucked in tighter the longer they’re swaddled; maybe it

took them millions of tries to not honk at the man taking up too much of the

pavement they wanted; maybe they know it can get better as long as you get

to keep trying; maybe that is why they’ve chosen to let us live.

---

---