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The grandeur of their Expos was familiar:
their pastime was commuter rail departing
from geodesic spheres, and grand arches built to span—
if only allegorically—disparate ideals.
The elders of our nation found it quaint.
Their designers were philosophers. Ours,
engineers. In their country, with its globular buildings,
and lanky, finned automobiles, the people
might have been happier, but we
have more efficient use of space.
They would chat with their neighbours about
such bric-a-brac, and visit their landmarks
in eager groups. When they finally reached
the age of shortage, overcome by harsher facts,
their assimilation was all but certain.
There could be no treaty. It isn’t just
the Apollonian need to set things square.
There was always so much waste, even in the way
they walked. Our incursion was immaculate.
We are a decent people who only wish to be correct.
There would have to be another vision for occupying space,
new rituals for sitting and standing, for the physical interruption
of the planar world. No longer would we distinguish
between exist and inhabit. No asking where we live.
We live. Now to lug our dwellings like a hermit crab
or not. What would the word for shelter be?
Like cave or under-hang, or more like shade or company?
Two hundred words for horizon comprise an anthem.
Without walls, privacy would still occur, only wilder.
We would vote by standing upright, and emphasize
ourselves by raising our hands, lengthening our votes
as a challenge to the levelness of the meeting place.
Prisons would be nothing—but banishment theoretical and severe:
how best to find a cave or shade beyond the vanishing point?
And who goes there? It was the heretic and prodigy who said:
I can make a cathedral of my condition and worship there.
We’d have to rethink our investments—bearish
on the local trade. We never put much stock in that.
And reckless with our gratitude, assigning it
helter-skelter to the windfall and the kill.
Otherwise, we’d only have ourselves to thank.
But we’d be bullish on travel points and dining out.
And bad with names: no Mud Hens, no Netherlands.
Of course there would be more fundamental gaps.
Just tally up the unanswered questions: How
do you make a straight line run parallel to another?
What are the secrets of the integer and the abacus?
When does the accounting of an ox head lead to A?
Without roots, we’d find the answers here and there.
Here, the world would be our chocolate factory.
There, we wouldn’t have to settle for anything.