Ultraterrestrial
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
My brothers’ lives are alien and far
Away from mine. The wives float, quite . . . unknown . . .
Along with foreign things like kids. Bizarre . . .
And also there are even grandkids. Those alone
Make distant universes from the sphere
I live in, which is childless. Parallel
Would be too strong a word. More like a sheer
Reverse is what my cosmos is. Pastel
Is probably what they imagine mine
To be, a sonnet-wide and childless sea,
A distant epic poem, waveless brine
And salty shore without a landing quay.
The chart to their existence has been burned
For me. Their lives are planets that I spurned.
~ Phillip Whidden