crop circles 

i used to be more invested in aliens
than i am now. sometimes, on a cool night,
i would go out to the corn fields 
in the hopes that i might see a crop circle
being born in late august. i never witnessed
an arrival but i did find a fox path 
that led to an old limestone kiln built
into the side of a hill. the foxes 
were very secretive & i do not blame them.
humans are the worst of all animals
at keeping secrets. most crop circles were not
made by extra-terrestrials. i do understand why
people decide to become architects 
of the otherworldly. our shared hunger
for a rupture. one pair of friends in the 90s confessed
to pressing hundreds of crop circles 
in fields throughout their lives. all kinds
of patterns. rings like ripples pulsing away
from a dropped stone. interlocking hoops.
a language only the birds know. 
i like to imagine them working silently. 
they used nothing but a wooden board
tied to a rope to press the stalks to the soil.
walking in circles. lately i end up
talking in circles more & more. i tell my lover 
we should get a farm which is just my way of saying
i know i am an alien & it is time that i accept it.
press the corn. call home. a flash in
the dazzling deep sky. the foxes, in their hollows.
keeping our secret. i think we all just want
another species to talk to. someone to say,
"yes we are real & the sky is as vast as it seems."
of course, we could just talk to the cicadas or 
the chickens who sift in the earth for seed. 
i take a walk down the farm roads. rolling hills. 
not a crop yet to carve a signal into. 
old cobs from last year are still strewn about
like yellow clenched teeth.