How Do You Hold an Alien?

How do you hold an alien?

Is there some cosmic receptivity

to which you can extend yourself –

to open you to find and learn to mine

a universal lexicon of touch? Do you try

to bring it hopefulness too little or too much?

Is its disgruntlement a sign that it is ready

to align? Does squirming mean it’s fine?

When you caress it to express affection, 
does that register as threat, annoyance,

stress, egregious lack of politesse?

Does it retract from you to its resistant

pose because it loathes your smell? Is it hell

to feel the humid texture of your skin? Does

your sotto voce breath subject it to an awful

din? Are you a blessing or a curse? To what

is it attracted and to what is it averse?

Questions only make it worse.

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