And you're my one in five billion,          
quiet as a hummingbird.
Out where the crafts hover,
where the triangles blip
and depart,
I was certain a spaceship
would land so stealth
we'd have to serve it lunch.
A lie is most convincingly
hidden between two truths.
Ham on rye. Vat cafe
at some edge
with tabloid wallpaper
and an airbase.
I catch glimpses
only to release them,
blinking. You've decided
on levels beyond which
you need not gander
so I've decided
to give you a haircut.
One hot tight buzz.
Flatten it out, if only to level
my fictitious with your decent.
Doctored photographs by various
and sundry behind the counter
but the same crop marks
and light strips,
oracle gone sky highward.
You don't have to know much
to know something. Sometimes
the only sane answer
to an insane world
is rampant paranoia.
And new clothes,
mascara. A wig maybe.

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The title of my poem comes from the Martin Amis novel Time's Arrow. It is one of several headlines the narrator cites from the Gazette: "I begin at the foot of the column and toil my way up the page to find each story unedifyingly summarized in inch-high type. MAN GIVES BIRTH TO DOG. Or STARLET RAPED BY PTERODACTYL. Greta Garbo, I read, has been reborn as a cat. All this stuff about twins. A Nordic superrace will shorty descend from the cosmic iceclouds; they will rule the earth for a thousand years...LOVE LIFE ON PLUTO. I AM ZSA ZSA GABOR SAYS MONKEY" (12).