Mrs. God

I am not a woman, I

am a man. Made in His image.

I keep the house, a gray Cape Cod,

and broom it well. I wear a skirt to be

comfortable. I build the fire.

When my husband comes home I don’t pester Him with questions.

He knows where to find His slippers and His pipe.

Out our kitchen back door I see the prophets freight-hopping

the long bad Western in ancient English

that no one need read to know. Everyone speaks his part:

the women keep their heads down

while the men are losing theirs. Children?

How often I’ve prayed for a child, which means

slipping meaning looks to my husband as we rock

together on the porch of an evening, drinking lemonade

and playing Scrabble. If He lets me win

it’s a sign. I haven’t won yet.

But the neighbor children come and go

and take the pies cooling on the windowsill

without thanks. Sometimes terrible things

happen to them — some man

spills the blood

cradled so carefully in every hand. I accept

no blame. The pies were there to leave alone,

or not. God says nothing

but taps out His pipe, stands, with a hand

to ease His aching back. Time for bed.

Our bed is a rolling ocean that I tread alone

just a head bobbing above the ash-colored waves

while the moon waits for me and everything

to drown, to know again the peace

the moon knows, the silence interrupted by astronauts,

little green men, the spectacle a mother

can’t help but make of  herself. God

comes to bed

and I clutch a spar, a barrel, an oar,

and ride out the night with it. When He fucks me

still He doesn’t speak, for speech is creation

but I rock with him, I roll inside

what cannot be comprehended, in force. I forget

that I’m a man, I forget the wild sea, I let slip

my grasp and the colors I have

that cover me. Once I dreamed

of the morning: we left the house together

in identical sober suits, we stood in the street

and beheld the sad little town, wreathed in black crepe

for its children. As though the morning

could show me His face. He coughed.

And when I awoke

in our ordinary bed, streaked by sun through leaded windows, I held

my baby to my breast and watched the roof  beam

and whispered to her, It’s all right,