They, Alien, by Lee Woodman

Photo by Lee Woodman. We Come in Peace, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, by Huma Bhabha (USA, b. Pakistan) 2018

They, Alien  
​         
They come in peace, standing stone still outside a White House.
Tall, one might guess forged of clay, cork and bronze, perhaps papier maché--
One pink head, four faces in each direction, black nostrils flaring,
torso of turquoise, massive chest with yellow nipple studs,
abdomen and legs that turn black below the belly
with forearms pressed against trousers down to space boy boots.
 
You terrified them, you militia of horseback and guards of gun men.
They’ve bared themself to you with love, red and yellow vagina bearing
witness, bulbous black penis and scrotum to the left side.
The upturned eye lashes on their voluminous breasts say they are open,
raise no arm to fight, no weapon to harm.
They are the Goddess of Everywhere, Urdu tattoos in royal blue and orange 
cover both arms, Jewish stars on one forehead, Native American braids down
the back, an arrow toward two fleshy buttocks marked with orange dots.
 
You see them as prehistoric or apocalyptic. They’ve fallen on one knee.
They came in peace--
Now, you are the Other.

Lee Woodman
​
Lee Woodman is the winner of the 2020 William Meredith Prize for Poetry. Her essays and poems have been published in Tiferet Journal, Zócalo Public Square, Grey Sparrow Press, The Ekphrastic Review, vox poetica, The New Guard Review, The Concord Monitor, The Hill Rag, and Naugatuck River Review. A Pushcart nominee, she received an Individual Poetry Fellowship from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities FY 2019 and FY 2020. Her poetry collection, Mindscapes, was published by Poets’ Choice Publishing on January 9, 2020, and Homescapes was published on May 22, 2020 by Finishing Line Press.