Poetry from David Kopaska-Merkel

UFO Museum: Roswell, NM


Breaking in was nothing,

For one of my talents,

Ditto for lifting the device I needed

From its glass case without tripping the alarm;

Installing and testing it was a matter of moments.

I was ready to go;

I'd miss Darlene, she'd been good to me:

A loving wife, willing participant

In what must have seemed, at times,

Bizarre activities, but she'd get over it,

And I couldn't give her the children

She so desperately needed,


I needed to get back to my other family,

My other wife

Raising a horde of sprouts on her own,

And I was so tired of the lies:

An only child of fictitious parents

Killed in a “car” crash,

Born and raised in “the Midwest,”

A retired airline pilot.

My only real fear,

That my wife had remarried,

And her husband had, of course, eaten our young,

So I'm on my way back to Aldebaran,

And I really hope that if I have to kill and eat

Her and her lover,

He's not one of my brothers.