"Next Best Thing," by Sergio Ortiz
Our parents were astronauts
of two extremes.
Every vacant lot
where we used to play
started boiling over, so
we grew up (in word only)
against the prognosis
of a possible plague
of perverts arriving
to snatch us.
We were unlabeled objects
on the pavement
sculpting our silhouettes
for the trap,
babbling and babbling
until we vomited
the true value of silence.
At the end of the space race
reality always exceeds fiction.
Sergio A. Ortiz is a two-time Pushcart nominee, a four-time Best of the Web nominee, 2016 Best of the Net nominee, and 2nd place in the 2016 Ramón Ataz Annual Poetry Competition sponsored by Alaire publishing house. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in FRIGG, Tipton Poetry Journal, Drunk Monkeys, and Bitterzeot Magazine. He is currently working on his first full-length collection of poems, Elephant Graveyard.