God-weather

by Richard Jarrette

We could walk freely inside Nebuchadnezzar’s killing furnace most of the time
because our God–weather was generally mild,

smooth sailing, and you cuddling with the lions, me throwing bones with the
executioners, having some laughs, a few herby beers.

But God–weather’s tricky, drove me to my desk to drink the black inkwell straight down,
you to your room to expertly bandage the precise

hieroglyphics drawn on your thighs with that fine surgeon’s scalpel. Our love talk
blew all over the place in the goddamn weather.

Your poems are like licking honey from God’s fingers, you purred.
A fragment of you is the fractal equation of God–beauty, said I.

(Like Giacometti shouting at Braque while drawing the death portrait) Wake up. You
cannot be dead, Katja. You are not dead. Wake up.