A Sacrament

Consuming the soft crystal
the alien looked like a probe 
sent into the orbit of my brain.

I gazed wondrously into
its big, Texas-sized eyes. 

The room became calm
like twilight. The oak trees,
the ones outside, felt destroyed,

as if they were knocked over,
and placed on an 18 wheeler
heading out of the great forests. 

As the scent of sandalwood rose up. 
The creature placed its “hands”
on my shoulders and touched
a grape seed heart pumping. 

From the center of its head came
an osprey white egg. The smell of
sandalwood turned into boiled
mushrooms and something buried
at the bottom of the trash. 

I was a sacrament,
or at least that’s what it told me. 

George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry Journal, Chronogram Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, The Angle at St. John Fisher College, and 3:16 Journal. George’s blogs, essays and letters have appeared in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Havana TimesSouth China Morning Post, The Buffalo News, and more. 

See all his poems on Tea House here.


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