"They Spoke At Night"

They Spoke At Night

Twin tin cans connected,
string stretched through stardust.
Their signals penetrated
the tide of night, waves of stars.
Their emanations, frequencies mingled with
lapping galaxies and the cool,
rolling breath of darkness
while we slept our innocent sleep,
dreamed of chess squares or dead
relatives come back to say hi,
surrounded by still, empty streets,
DANGER, DETOUR, sawhorses topped
by flashing amber lights.
The radiation of deep space
poured down on us, we stirred,
left to right, found the cool side.
They exchanged, shuttled, built.
We couldn’t comprehend what they said,
we didn’t know any better.

©JEF 2011