The Aliens Are Unionizing

Baskets woven

by alien women

are still just baskets

and eons went

with no one asking

for equal pay

across the planets,

“How dare they,”

Matila mutters one day,

“pay us less for our work?”

So Matila forms

the galactic guild

of weavers,

every Sunday

they meet

to discuss

payment in yen

but no one knows when Sunday is

and 99.99% don’t know how much a yen is

so Bob on Roth charges seventy-four yen for her baskets

and Trin on Toboggan charges seventy-four yu for her baskets

and Matila sends out letters explaining yen to yu has a three to one ratio

but she doesn’t own a faster-than-lightspeed ship

(everyone with one of those is supposed to come to her

but they haven’t returned in ages,

since the guild formation)

so the letters take light years to get there

and she’s never been to Tobglob

or whatever it’s called

so she made the three-to-one fraction up

cuz she has heard of yu from her great-great-grandmother

and that’s good enough for her

and Eggsit on Auntray charges thirty-two zoops for her baskets

but who’s buying

Exit on Entrée Baskets?

And Tilly on Silly tells this story before bed

and the kids laugh and ask her,

“What’s a basket, mama?”

And Tilly pats their hands and says, “I don’t know,

they went extinct two Sundays ago.”