Table of Contents

Editor’s Introduction • D.A. Xiaolin Spires

Visitation • Anna Cates
Special Delivery • Lorraine Schein
The Andromedans’ Gift • Lisa Timpf
We Called Them Visitors / Los llamamos visitantes • Angel Eduardo Peña Perez
Flight of the K’ai (a translated Y¡ poem) • Lilith Acadia
Firefly Graduation • Shinya Kato
missing starlight • Ian Li
The Dragons of Kepler-62 b • Deborah L. Davitt
Convergent Etymology • Julia Sinclair
Imminent Greetings • Mary Soon Lee
Forestscape • Miguel O. Mitchell
Our Acilonite Professor • Alper Ghuchlu
The alien • John C. Mannone
Customs Declaration at the Edge of Orion • Gloria Ogo
Mirth Contact • Hinse Mutter
One Hundred Mes • Shikhandin
What the Exo-Ethnologist Carried • Matteo Preabianca
Stone is too soft • Richard Magahiz
Abductee • Holly Lyn Walrath
The Picasso Aliens • Daniel Ausema
[black hole] • Nicholas De Marino

Visitation

the strange craft
reminded me
of a warm day
in the nature preserve
where there drifts
so smoothly
over that symphony
of scents
a tiny, shiny
little green bug…

mothership…
big brains burbling
in preserving fluid

—Anna Cates

Special Delivery

alien mail: the saucer hovers,
sorts it by theme
delivers star messages to us
through our dream slots

—Lorraine Schein

The Andromedans’ Gift

We taught the Andromedans how to play softball and hockey,
and they proved particularly fond of archery and darts.

What surprised us is how quickly
they caught on.

Some say that’s the important thing.
How proficient they became.

Some think that’s why we learned to love them,
to recognize in them a kind of kindred spirit.

But I think it was the fact they had no concept of math,
no grasp of scores or time clocks.

That’s what made the games so enjoyable—
they never cared who won or lost.

They reminded us what it meant to play
for the fun of it, like puppies or children.

They gave us back our innocence,
so we might rediscover
joy.

—Lisa Timpf

We Called Them Visitors

They did not arrive in ships.
No light split the sky,
no warning trembled through the air.
They arrived quietly—
inside our language.
At first, it was small:
a word that did not belong,
a sentence bending
in a direction we had never learned.
Children spoke it easiest.
They laughed with mouths
full of unfamiliar grammar,
as if something ancient
had always been waiting
behind their teeth.
We called them visitors,
but they never knocked.
They lived in the way we began
to misunderstand each other,
in the silence after conversations
that once felt simple.
Soon, love changed.
Not disappeared—
just… translated.
“I miss you”
no longer meant absence.
“I love you”
no longer meant staying.
By the time we noticed,
we were already fluent
in a language
that did not need us.
And somewhere,
far beyond the reach of our voices,
something listened—
not to what we said,
but to what we were
becoming.

* * *

Los llamamos visitantes 

No llegaron en naves.
Ninguna luz partió el cielo,
ninguna advertencia tembló en el aire.
Llegaron en silencio—
dentro de nuestro lenguaje.
Al principio fue pequeño:
una palabra que no encajaba,
una frase doblándose
en una dirección desconocida.
Los niños lo hablaban mejor.
Reían con la boca
llena de una gramática extraña,
como si algo antiguo
hubiera estado esperando
detrás de sus dientes.
Los llamamos visitantes,
pero nunca tocaron la puerta.
Vivían en la forma
en que empezamos a no entendernos,
en el silencio después de conversaciones
que antes eran simples.
Pronto, el amor cambió.
No desapareció—
solo… se tradujo.
“Te extraño”
ya no significaba ausencia.
“Te amo”
ya no significaba quedarse.
Cuando lo notamos,
ya éramos fluidos
en un idioma
que no nos necesitaba.
Y en algún lugar,
más allá del alcance de nuestras voces,
algo escuchaba—
no lo que decíamos,
sino en lo que nos estábamos
Convirtiendo.

—Angel Eduardo Peña Perez

Flight of the K’ai (a translated Y¡ poem)

like vapor
haze hovers
in proprioception
feel the approach
[aspirated ¡]

like zinc sulfide
dissolution laps
your ctenoid scales
increase your torque
[aspirated ¡]

like potassium chloride
powder flutters
over my membranes
spiral out
[aspirated ¡]

the K’ai
generosity flies
by other beings
we approach
the K’ai

drawn
as to the orbit’s
height of radiation
dim your flare
draw close

you, I, the K’ai
all move
under one
red dwarf sun
[aspirated ¡]

Recorded by K2-18b probe BHYS8. Translated by Dr. Pej Cai, Postdoctoral Fellow in Y¡ Language and Culture (project years 681–686 of the People’s Reclaimed Power Era), Department of Society Studies, The First Decentralized Terran University of Human Intelligence.

Translator’s note: this poem demonstrates the predominant Y¡ poetic style. The K’ai is a common endemic creature on planet K2-18b, symbiotic with several higher intelligence species who enjoy the gases it respirates. K’ai photosynthesize, so are not predatory despite their relative size, allowing other species to view them favorably, comparable to human conceptions of cuteness.

—Lilith Acadia

Firefly Graduation

Fireflies glow—
small lights
mislaid by night.
Someone once laughed:
perhaps
this could become
propulsion.
Impossible.
Yet they persisted.
Generations
without number.
Trial
after trial.
They vanished.
Returned.
Glowed.
Until the firefly
learned
motion.
Ignition.
The first alien photon engine.
A firefly
slips free of gravity,
passes through the night,
and departs.
Graduation
from this Earth.
On a rooftop,
a black cat
watches the light fade.
Night.
In narrow eyes
moonlight
glints.

—Shinya Kato

missing starlight

she plummets through an indigo sky 
the way we all were brought into this world, 
soft and tearful, fumbling in darkness for food
and comfort. but she lands far from family, 
throngs of slumbering concrete beasts 
pinning her under their long shadows, 
their glassy skins aglow in evening gloom, 
suffusing the gaps between them 
with sterile light, blotting out 
her precious starlight. she glides 
through the maze of their feet until she finds 
alien grass rippling beneath her, 
emerging from suffocation to catch pale traces 
of celestial blooms, leading to her home star’s 
nourishing glimmer. yet still her starfire stomach 
is a black hole of desire. sometimes a familiar meal 
only makes you miss home more.

—Ian Li

The Dragons of Kepler-62 b

Scales of reticulated, crystalline silicon
refract rainbows in the light,
absorbing energy from the white dwarf star
that glows close—too close—
in the sky above;
this creature needs no sustenance
but the sun itself.

The vast beast basks in a basalt desert,
black volcanic rock capturing the heat of the star
and radiating it back into the dragon’s body;
onyx claws crumble the rock beneath them
tear at the earth itself
as gases, superheated to a state near plasma,
emerge from the dragon’s mouth,
melting the stone,
reshaping it into a nest bowl.

Soon it will be mating season,
and she’ll fly high, above the thin atmosphere
of this desolate world.
In the void of space, she’ll select her mate,
the quickest, most intelligent sire, the only one
fast enough to catch her, the only one
nimble enough to keep her,

and they will fall twined,
like a meteor back through the heavens,
scales gleaming red-hot with re-entry fires,
until they land, sated;
and lay their eggs in the nest bowl.

Humans developed communication out of need—
survival demanded working together.
The dragons of Kepler developed without predators
strong enough to take them down, the dominant species
depending only on starlight to feed;
their only enemies were each other,
in the dark times when territory needed
to be fought over, the best nesting sites and
basking terraces on the sunlight face
of this tidally-locked world.

Their songs, rich in complexity, came not from need,
but from joy,
and she gives voice to them now
as she works the stone,
as she drinks the sun,
as she exists, and knows that she exists,
in the palm of the universe.

—Deborah L. Davitt

Convergent Etymology

like ours, their language
is rooted in anatomy

from our hands’ gangly stars,
a base-ten number system

from their segmented tentacles,
symbolism in sextet harmonies

from our trichromatic vision,
vivid metaphors for joy

from their tripartite hearts,
three hundred words for love

—Julia Sinclair

Imminent Greetings

radioed the aliens
in twenty-eight of our languages

in eighteen furry days
we will arrive

or so our vessel
has foretold to us

as she knots her way
betwixt the ordained stars

if ‘furry’ was a translation error
they erred in twenty-eight languages

we adore the debauchery
of your ecosystems

and offer our expertise
as animal gardeners—

let us play orangely
amid tall fields of genomes!

none of us certain what ‘orangely’ means
though it seems better than debauchery

please prepare a tableau
of organisms to edit

together with the hypotenuse
of edits to your good selves

for fun and profit
your friends from Aldebaran

this followed by a price list—
four days remain and no consensus

except that mosquitoes
deserve what they will get.

—Mary Soon Lee

Forestscape

First sunrise greeted my treehouse
my mandibles clacked in reply
warmth thawed my forebrain
green blood brightened and brisk

I climbed six-legged down my home tree
breakfast was all around me
small, mobile and crunchy
à la carte repast on a loamy tray
an amusing human metaphor

I dispersed scent smiles as I passed each gorging neighbor
they sprayed their serenity
clinging to the enormous black shell of one mother
          were four living turquoise jewels
they had the false fragrance of forever
their behemoth mother, my recent mate, slapped my antennae
          with her own
a stay-away-no-help-needed-don’t-make-me-kill-and-eat-you
          reminder

Second sunrise came tiny and orange
like that disgusting fruit humans ate
what a heretical simile!
a cross-cultural corruption
I bit off my right foreleg as punishment
the itch of its regrowth will be a daily penance

The human settlement appeared before me
sterile dirt surroundings saddened
electrified fence hum threatened
there was no solace scent
no green lushness and humid shadows

Forward then
remaining five limbs loped
antennae aloft
rear pincers vibrated
the front gates opened to audacity
come on, you shell-less, chemical-drenched, soft bodies
let’s try again
if I can parse your ceaseless squawking
you can at least learn

the aromaverse

of polite society

—Miguel O. Mitchell

Our Acilonite Professor

A man with a good heart
Who wants to teach.
Just a few awkward moments—
Of his spikes denting the desks.
Of his constant need for water
That made us miss when the aquarium
Was a whole lot smaller.
Of his mandibles making the lunchtime
Look a bit too weird.
Of his fight-or-flight response
Triggered by the construction sounds.
Of him taking a bit too long
To grade papers with his clawed hands.
But nonetheless
He’s trying his best
And so are we.

—Alper Ghuchlu

The alien

(Shakespearean Sonnet with variation)

entity washes up along a long stretch of sand—
resembling a piece of driftwood. Its torn carcass
writhing in pain, grappling the pebbled sand
at water’s ebb with worn talons. Arms, like glass

frozen in its flail, twisted from interdimensional
travel. It came from a world with heavy clouds,
once lush and green. I know, I can read its intentional
thoughts, now fading. Its world destroyed by shrouds

of wanton disregard and senseless war —a waste
land. Should I heal this creature? Risk invasion, unlearn
what we have achieved a millennia ago, taste
corruption? Perhaps. I’ll implant, in its dreams, a stern

warning, send it back to its gray, withering world in dearth
of mercy and grace. Back to the world that they call Earth.

—John C. Mannone

Customs Declaration at the Edge of Orion

They arrive carrying suitcases.

Not ray guns,
not ultimata,
not the polished menace
our cinema promised.

Suitcases.

They queue beneath the floodlit dome
of the Interstellar Reception Terminal,
translucent skins flickering.

The first one opens its case.

Inside,
three smooth stones,
a dried blue flower,
and a recording of rain.

The immigration officer blinks.

Purpose of visit?

The translator hesitates,
searching seven thousand languages
for a word that means

the ache of missing a place
while still living there.

Finally, it settles on
Tourism.

They nod politely.

Behind them,
families from Tau Ceti,
the Perseus Drift,
shuffle forward.

A child with six eyes
clutches a stuffed human.

Its fabric face is smiling.

One eye falls off.

The child begins to cry.

Its mother repairs the toy
with a strand of living thread
grown from her wrist.

The line advances.

Someone is selling coffee.
Someone else is selling maps
of constellations that no longer exist.

A beetle-shaped traveler
argues about excess baggage.

A cloud-being floats through security
and accidentally triggers every alarm.

Laughter erupts.

The sound is translated
into seventeen atmospheres.

Outside,
the stars continue
their ancient work of burning.

Inside,
forms are completed.

Species.
Origin.
Items to declare.

One human writes,
Earth.

Another standing next to her asks,
through a halo of shifting colors,

What was it like?

The question lands
with unexpected gravity.

She thinks of oceans.
Traffic lights.
Funerals.
Mangoes.
The smell of books.
The impossible blue of certain mornings.

How do you explain
an entire planet
to someone who has never stood
beneath its weather?

Complicated, she says at last.

The other’s skin brightens.

Wonderful, it replies.
Our world was complicated too.

They both laugh
at the translator struggling
to keep pace.

Much later,
when the station rotates
into artificial night,
the arrivals hall grows quiet.

A thousand species sleep.

A thousand dreams
cross invisible borders.

No invasions.
No empires.

Only travelers
drifting through the dark
with flowers,
stones,
recordings of rain,

searching the universe
for someone
who recognizes home
even when it is spoken
with a different mouth.

—Gloria Ogo

Mirth Contact

They landed their ships
at comedy festivals on Earth.
Tried their appendages at stand-up,
and only a few of them bombed.

Many more made jokes about bombing,
but coming in peace.
About serving man
a round of applause after a good set.

They harvested our mirth,
a finite resource to them.
Our bottled laughter
sustaining them for years to come.

They left the next day,
for Alpha Centauri.
Where apparently they have the best
déjà vu this side of the Quadrant.

—Hinse Mutter

One Hundred Mes

I let one hundred mes down
the shaft. Deep into the lunar mines.
What treasures they dug
up, without any rest. Such loyalty
from my one hundred mes.

Sooner than soon, they finished
their tasks. With hive-mind focus
they sent up the sorted gems 
and metals. In precise order into 
the cargo-hold of my waiting ship. 

I watched with brimming eyes
as they blasted into the cold
vastness of space. The tiniest
of bits and pieces – my one
hundred mes, trained to do as bid. 

Now I prepare to leave this barren 
place. And space-jump back to 
the trading post deep inside the spiral
galaxy. I will be rich enough then 
to brew another one hundred mes.

Their number tags swing and 
Sway from the special pouch
They had sent up with the last 
consignment. My trusty minions, 
my precious dead one hundred mes.

Their DNA imprinted in a cavity
etched into each name tag. Waiting
for the day of their rebirth. Ah me! 
I, fussy mom will watch over the tender 
foetuses of my soon-to-be one hundred mes.

—Shikhandin

What the Exo-Ethnologist Carried

After three hundred standard cycles
embedded with the Xylos: silicate-based,
slow-talking as sediment, their memory
stored in spiral grain like petrified song

the human anthropologist filed her final report
and filed her own teeth down to nubs
to better grind the lichen they call bread.

She stopped dreaming in linear time.
She stopped flinching when a Xylo parent
shattered a juvenile against rock face
to test its resonance—they heal, they heal,
the translator murmured, and it was true:
the pieces reassembled, singing a higher octave.

Her family back on Mars sent videos:
birthdays, funerals, a grandchild’s first step.
She watched each once. Then she deleted them.
The Xylos have no word for nostalgia.
Their closest equivalent means rot that nourishes.

When the extraction team finally came
to bring her home, she refused the ship.
She had grown a second heart, not metaphor,
but actual organ, calcite and porous,
thrumming at 0.4 beats per minute.

You’ve gone native, the lead medic said,
which was wrong. She hadn’t gone anywhere.
She had arrived.

The Xylos do not ask why are you here?
They ask what pattern do you complete?
She showed them her scarred hands,
the missing teeth, the slow pulse.

They touched her forehead with one crystalline finger.
You are almost rock, they said. Welcome home.

—Matteo Preabianca

Stone is too soft

When you feel anything deeply, immortalize it with microwaves. The glory of a new mathematical proof, the demonstrated attainment of your gene line, the perfidy of your sworn enemies, put these and more out there beaming in all directions into space with a beacon with a long-lived source of energy. More durable than printed materials and reaching more of an audience than mountains. The electromagnetic spectrum is the lingua franca for all good sapients. The spectral line of water vapor at 22.2 GHz is a good marker, maybe a few hundred megahertz up or down. Do incorporate self-correction in your modulation scheme and remember to transmit your language invariants frequently. Should you communicate with gesture send out your thoughts in rasterized 2D or 3D chunks. Among thinking types, attention is the soul juice. Be reconciled to the likelihood you will never know the size of your audience. In the time it takes for signal there and back even the most durable of civilizations is prone to vanish. Yours or theirs.

—Richard Magahiz

Abductee

you’re very, very tired of surviving. you survived your father’s belt, and later, you survived the boyfriends who came after, and even later, you survived the memory of it all. counseling. hypnosis. rapid eye movements. that’s all behind you now but sometimes you go away to remember it, to wallow. like a fugitive of manipulation, you have found the only place where you can be alone and safe with your thoughts is on this hill. the grass stretches out around you and when the breeze sweeps over the hill it looks like ripples in water. the city lusters below you, how it gleams like an insect’s back, like the green-blue beatle who crawls over your hand. you don’t flinch anymore. like an amnesiac, you’ve learned to forget the fire of pain but the trouble is, now you’re numb. so when the circle of pulsing lights shifts down from behind a cloud and hovers above you—you take down all your barriers. a disarmament. you stand up and you gasp at how beautiful the creature who climbs out of the lights is—how disarmingly tall. this world has taken all it can from you. there isn’t any more to give, except perhaps your absence. you defect. your therapist will be happy, anyway, not to have to keep asking you the same questions. the creature puts out a limb—a hand of sorts—and you take it, marveling at how the flesh pulls your hand into it like glue. take me away from here, you say, and then you go, and for once, you feel hopeful.

—Holly Lyn Walrath

The Picasso Aliens

Having studied us by our art,
limited selections beamed outward
consisting only of Picasso’s Cubist figures,
the aliens took on the forms from the paintings
and came to us hoping the familiar shapes
would soften us to their arrival.
In wild colors and multiplied faces they came,
in uncanny angles and surfaces,
in disjointed surprise.

We loved them for their difference;
they mistrusted our solitary expressions
and departed when they learned
they couldn’t rearrange us
to their liking.

—Daniel Ausema

black hole …
a space frog jumps in
Ø

—Nicholas De Marino