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They dock at the old ferry landing,
drip fern-water and quartz dust,
pull shapes from a memory
nobody can name.
 
The news calls them pioneers.
The city calls for volunteers:
one hundred credits a shift,
hazard pay if you stay after dark.
 
We line the streets in plastic ponchos,
swing buckets of bleach
at whatever falls from them—
glass teeth, velvet skins,
the small, sad faces they wear like necklaces.
 
The mayor cuts a ribbon made of hair,
offers a key to the city
that dissolves in the taker's hand.
 
Still, the parade lurches on:
a hollowed calf that leaks birds from its eyes,
a choir of mouths stitched into a winter coat,
a gloved hand, walking on its fingertips,
asking directions in sign language.
 
We clap.
We wave flags.
We rinse the sidewalk behind them, smiling.
 
We stay because the escape pod is too expensive.
There was never room for us anyway.

The loudspeakers keep saying:
Welcome home. Welcome home. Welcome home.

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