Hermeneutics

All winter she's been growing more powerful.

Radiant, says the man at the bar.

Voluptuous, says the docent.

Nervy, says God.

All winter her soul has been juddering.

It feels like drinking gold flakes!

The word sleeps inside the stone.

The wind tongues the underside of the lake.

Inside the rifle scope of time, God

teaches her grounding techniques

through his emissary, a Certified Therapist.

Beetles bore their dirty traffic into pine trees.

God says, You cling to deixis

like a life raft. Here, you say. Now,

you say. All winter, you say, like it means

something, days crossed off your compulsive

calendar, wind tied to your wrist

like a pet.

This dumb hunger for fixity!

I made your cells to shed, says God.

She bites her lip till it bleeds.

Who wouldn't immanentize the eschaton,

if they could, build heaven on earth

in the backyard?

She wouldn't, is who.

Day a slit-throated ewe.

To ground herself, she strips berries

from juniper bushes.

Well, says God, Alexander the Great

dyed his hair saffron. We are all

made fools in this world.