It fell from the sky last night.

It dropped down faster than I could follow and stopped without slowing,
just an inch off of the grass outside.

I went out to it.
I had seen it many times before, but never had I come this close.
It had come and gone away, and I had never even touched the thing,
so
I went out to it.

It was a cobalt-blue doughnut, a motionless torus, a flat cylinder with
a hole in the middle like some giant sideways capital O six feet tall.

Its surface was featureless and blank,
and its top and bottom edges terribly sharp.

I slowly reached out, one finger of one, hand, and touched it.
It wasn’t warm, it wasn’t cold, it wasn’t anything,
but after that my clothes started burning me and I had to take them off.
After that I pressed both palms, all fingers, against it,
and still felt nothing but pressure,
but my hair started hurting and I had to pull it out.

The rest of the night, I tried for some response, any sign.
I threw things at it, I yelled at it, I commanded it to open.
I burned my clothes and hair and threw the ashes on top of the thing.
I ran at it like a cop trying to knock down a door.
I tried to climb on top of it, but I couldn’t stay there.
Everything ventured, nothing gained.
At least it stayed longer this time.

Finally, it left. I tried to catch it but it was gone before the knowing.

I suppose I can’t complain. It never really hurt me
and it didn’t do anything I could call unfair.
Still I have this regret, this sense of loss,
as if there was something more I could have done,
something better.
something stronger.

It will come again in a week or month or so.
Maybe then I will get inside.
Maybe then I can touch it.