A
New God
After a trip to the pet store and
ice cream: Feeding time
Drop the crickets into the
terrarium. See them scramble over rocks
They love it. It has everything. Blow
them into the path of the penumbra
The predator, a gecko, which begins
to blink awake and raise its head
A leopard gecko. Spotted and slow,
its moss-stained glass dripping hot
From the deserts of Pakistan. One
of Eve’s last noticed on her busy list
Among the dehydrated stretches
and monsoon lands of earth
Lick your lips. Still the sweet,
slick film of how life used to be
The gecko was inherited, already
named, on its second tail: Godzilla
In an experiment one couldn’t do
without an amphibian at play
For my sons--rather, for me--Godzilla
becomes God. We watch
Alert, God is hunting crickets as
the sun goes down in Pakistan
Eyes like the sky and a bounding
chest, gloss of blood in a gecko’s lick
God is eating away the lies. Blotting
the guilt of centuries
Killing shame for lying still. Chomping
fear of him, fear of hell
We speak to it through its cosmic
screen like a confessional
He licks his eyes wide and clear,
de-conditioning the meaning of cathedral
Re-drawing the cross with antennae
protruding from its reptilian smile
While I am erasing the concept of
an angry God of time. God in his desert
Crickets trembling amongst the stones
of consequence like pews
