The intergalactic traveler goes to the movies by Kendall Dunkelberg

Of course, his favorites are the sci fi flicks.
Their earthling notions of space travel and aliens
are the most humorous. Anthropomorphism
is universal, yet the aliens always resemble
walking squids or seahorses. Most humans
would not recognize a real nonhuman, who
may inhabit a spectrum beyond their vision
or like the chameleon, blend into their surroundings.

Space jazz is another knee-slapper (even sans knees).
And still more hilarious are the lumbering spacecraft,
built like horizontal skyscrapers or floating cities,
stages for battle scenes with laser cannons exploding
in a vacuum lacking the oxygen for combustion.
Space is just a hi-tech substitute for the prairie,
where earthlings can act out their own aggressions,
and aliens are conveniently and recognizably other,
where heroes remain human and conflicts familiar.

Kendall Dunkelberg directs the low-residency MFA program at Mississippi University for Women. He is editor of Poetry South and has published three collections of poetry and recent poems in Juke Joint, Delta Poetry Review, and Tar River Poetry.