Creation.

Pavlovkis-Petit, Zoya

Creation

   In the beginning
   in a field
   of pompom-flowered
   yellow hosannas
   (now extinct),
   wearing a cotton cowl
   encrusted with
   one-hundred-and-one carat
   gold polka dots,
   under loud jazzy
   copper-blue skies,
   God worked on animals.

   Carefully,
   so no one'd see,
   holding His breath,
   hands clenched,
   eyes tightly shut,
   and swaying back and forth,
   He sang out
   like a crazy cantor:
   "Geese! Geese!
   Sheep! Sheep!
   Pigs! Pigs!"--and
   there they were:
   geese; sheep; and pigs.

   For making Adam,
   God put on
   a bat-winged
   black burnoose,
   flattering folds,
   like half-incinerated paper--
   a sign of all the prose
   (and poetry)
   destined to burst
   burning from man:
   the Word; the Law; the Book.

   But that was long ago;
   now there is barely
   a faint whiff
   of waxy, hairless, holy legs
   well on their way
   to better universes,
   where clothes--
   and words--
   will not be needed.