Relying on What I Know of How the Hidden Feels,
I Advance a Theory

by Jennifer Boyden

I showed God the pool of fish because
he said no one thought he had a sense of humor. Look,

I said, these are funny—flashy
kissers, the silver darts of them. God nodded, but said
he’d meant for them to rule the world. But then evolution,
he said, and, you know, it just didn’t work.

Carrots, I said. Now those are funny.
God said they were close and he could see my point,
but they just weren’t enough of what he meant.
Then I remembered something

and tilted back my head so he would watch me swallow.
Excellent! said God. I’d forgotten all about that one.

He said at first he’d put little apples everywhere: into the legs
of crickets and on the beaks of grackles.
We decided he’d been right
to take them out because they lacked subtlety. I was glad

he kept them in the bodies
of trees and stones and lined our backs with them, thrown them
into us

as if they were the coals by which we might burn.

From The Mouths of Grazing Things 
© University of Wisconsin Press, 2010.

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