Taking Flight

Still living for the flying saucer
in the grainy film
The Day the Earth Stood Still
always feeling like the alien
wanting to be rescued
by the mighty robot,
my heart still stops
in childhood wonder
at an extraterrestrial flight
by the cold war’s spaceship
from the ears of the sky
promising Mir, that peace
between the uneasiness of nations
whose echoes still reach me
by an indwelling fever
as the doors open for an exile
with an infinite language
in a poet’s parallel universe.