I got a sticker at the blood center

for giving away eight pints 

over a year: O positive 

disbursed into alien veins 

yet can I call them aliens 

when my hemoglobins 

flows through consciousness 

of Homo sapien cognition.

Free of headlight stain

along a farmland road,

I look upon the cosmos 

like a body sliced open 

by my eye of precision 

asking       are we alone?

under constellations I praise.

At home with a flickering bulb, 

I stick my sticker 

on the lampshade 

and play “The Golden Record”

bolted onto Voyager I

now beeping through interstellar space.

Blind Willie Johnson sings here

is mute there 

on his way to alien ears.