Boy from Space
by Bruce Boston

There is a brilliance
in this boy from space,
obtuse and innocent
as he often seems.

Tall-eared
and long of limb,
frail in the pull
of Earth's gravity,
his physical body
eludes our probes.

Hominid and alien,
he travels our world,
his stray pronouncements
appraised as aphorisms
we must assay for
their weight in gold.

He claims a far star.
Our scientists suspect 
another timeline,
briefly coincident 
with our own.

The Second-Comers
gather at his feet,
awaiting miracles
yet to unfold.

The traditionalists
decry all those
who would apotheosize
a creature clearly
not of this Earth.

The faithless continue
to shrug and smile,
dismissing all as lies.

In the winsome realms
of theoretical speculation,
solid as air and
light as what remains,
we coagulate the 
passing of his time.

Bruce Boston has published forty books and chapbooks, including the the best-of fiction collection Masque of Dreams and the novel Stained Glass Rain. His stories and poems have appeared in hundreds of publications (including Asimov's SF, Amazing Stories, Realms of Fantasy, Weird Tales, Year's Best Fantasy & Horror, and the Nebula Awards Showcase) and received a number of awards, most notably the Pushcart Prize, the Asimov's Readers' Award, the Rhysling Award, and the Grand Master Award of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. For more information, visit Bruce's author page.