The Aliens Sift Through Stacks of Kid Artwork All Depicting the Same Moon

Kristina Erny

i.

We wake from our hibernate state and move as one, as we always do, down to the warm center of our ship. The children have been up for hours, the sleep patterns of these fish, ellipsis, not our own.

Often we find them tucked into unknown shipslips, hiding in vague shadow.

They love this game of seeking. Our skin whispers as we move under them, hear them softly cluck. As we pass, their moon-pale and burdock legs dangle out of crevices above our heads. We are moved by the legs’ amniotic swing. Our fur tickles their toes as we go. We are hollowed out by their laughter. Their bright simple joy. When we do describe what we observe, it is easy for us to forget that this, too, is science.

Rifling through these documents we’ve realized they’ve sewn us somehow to themselves. Threaded fingernail to tentacle, twisted hair to hair, strung us all together until we cannot ever be alone or separate. ii. As we passed the new moon, we uncovered their undiluted record of it. Shuffled through left behind stacks of papers passionate with loved marking. The capture of the moon’s spirit, scrawled, raw image.

How they seem to know to curate an edge in such a way as this. Shape penciled marks which make a world. How they fixate like we do on the smallest detail. How they try again and again and again, their prior record, perceived failures strewn towards the wall.

How they continue to look. See?

Just as we do, desperate to get it right.

“

Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson