"Spare Room" by Leslie Lindsay
Dean Bartoli Smith | Encounters
The aliens came for my late mother one night in Sweet Air,
hovered over the cornfields behind our house
in a spaceship that darted like an arrow in a rectangular path
outside her window, shining a beam on her face.
The glare woke my stepfather, who witnessed the exchange.
My mother’s eyes rolled under her lids
as the creatures discussed the purpose of their visit.
She spoke to them through her mind.
Mom had been chosen to tell their story to the world;
her thoughts traveled across the yard in flashes of light.
“Countless worlds have evolved this way, on the way
to extinction, your planet is no different.”
“No one will believe me,” Dona repeated to the aliens.
Not even Mr. Larry, who worked as an engineer
and shot squirrels for breakfast as a kid. He changed
his mind after lying beside her that night.
Mom started listening to The Alan Parsons Project
and leaning into her myriad psychic powers.
She loved telling that story for the rest of her life.
The extraterrestrial being who made her feel special.
She appears in my dreams, mostly at my side,
and sometimes walking down crowded streets
where all the people are her. I asked how she
pulled that off. “I’m inside of everyone.”
hovered over the cornfields behind our house
in a spaceship that darted like an arrow in a rectangular path
outside her window, shining a beam on her face.
The glare woke my stepfather, who witnessed the exchange.
My mother’s eyes rolled under her lids
as the creatures discussed the purpose of their visit.
She spoke to them through her mind.
Mom had been chosen to tell their story to the world;
her thoughts traveled across the yard in flashes of light.
“Countless worlds have evolved this way, on the way
to extinction, your planet is no different.”
“No one will believe me,” Dona repeated to the aliens.
Not even Mr. Larry, who worked as an engineer
and shot squirrels for breakfast as a kid. He changed
his mind after lying beside her that night.
Mom started listening to The Alan Parsons Project
and leaning into her myriad psychic powers.
She loved telling that story for the rest of her life.
The extraterrestrial being who made her feel special.
She appears in my dreams, mostly at my side,
and sometimes walking down crowded streets
where all the people are her. I asked how she
pulled that off. “I’m inside of everyone.”
Dean Bartoli Smith is a poet whose work has appeared in Open City, Poetry East, Smartish Pace and upstreet, among others. His new book of poems, Magic Show, will be published in Fall of 2026 by Codhill Press. He's previously published two poetry collections: Baltimore Sons (Stillhouse Press, 2021) and American Boy (WWPH, 2000). He is the director of Duke University Press.
Leslie Lindsay’s work has been published in various literary and art journals, including: Up the Staircase Quarterly (cover art), Another Chicago Magazine (ACM), Wild Roof Journal, Spring-Summer, Brushfire Arts & Literature, The Closed Eye Open, Tiferet Journal, Mud Season Review, Western Michigan Review, Fall 2023, and On the Seawall, Model Home: A Study Under Compression, a photo essay in miniature, April 2023.
