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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Offering by Laura Foley These woods on the edges of a lake are settling now to winter darkness. Whatever was going to die is gone— crickets, ferns, swampgrass. Bare earth fills long spaces of a field. But look: a single oak leaf brown and shining like a leather purse. See what it so delicately offers lying upturned on the path. See how it reflects in its opened palm a cup of deep, unending sky.
Read more
Thinking by Danusha Lameris Don’t you wish they would stop, all the thoughts swirling around in your head, bees in a hive, dancers tapping their way across the stage? I should rake the leaves in the carport, buy Christmas lights. Was there really life on Mars? What will I cook for dinner? I walk up the driveway, put out the garbage bins. I should stop using plastic bags, visit my friend whose husband just left her for the Swedish nanny. I wish I hadn’t said Patrick’s painting looked “ominous.” Maybe that’s why he hasn’t called. Does the car need oil, again? There’s a hole in the ozone the size of Texas, and everything seems to be speeding up. Come, let’s stand by the window and look out at the light on the field. Let’s watch how the clouds cover the sun, and almost nothing stirs in the grass. From Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems  Grayson Books, 2017.
Read more
Trust by  Thomas R. Smith It’s like so many other things in life    to which you must say no or yes.                                     So you take your car to the new mechanic.    Sometimes the best thing to do is trust.    The package left with the disreputable-looking    clerk, the check gulped by the night deposit,    the envelope passed by dozens of strangers—    all show up at their intended destinations.    The theft that could have happened doesn’t.    Wind finally gets where it was going    through the snowy trees, and the river, even                when frozen, arrives at the right place.                         And sometimes you sense how faithfully your life    is delivered, even though you can’t read the address. From Waking Before Dawn  Red Dragonfly Press, 2007
Read more