Balance has nothing to do with scales.
It is never this week’s supermarket sale.
I ask the store manager for a rain check.
She spanks me and says When will you learn
the outcome is not yours alone.
A teenaged boy shows his balls
to a teenaged girl. Somewhere a barren
woman cannot get to sleep without listing
baby names. I am that woman. I am
that boy, that girl. My balls are not universes.
They are soft meat. We are all soft meat
waiting to be sopped up with God’s bread-
hands. God hangs in the balance between
hero and trash man. Eden is anywhere
painted green. Plant a tree in a cripple’s nub
and you’ll practically hear Adam beg
for the copyright to Eve’s cunt. Life
and death is the difference between a cake
that does or doesn’t rise — a slightly off
temperature, a sloppy measurement. Athena
and a rabbit seesaw on the playground.
When Athena points a gun at the rabbit,
the rabbit wishes for happiness
on its own foot. The seesaw becomes
a horizontal line. I sign my name
on it, handing over my misfortune
to children who can easily express their feelings
on an Etch-a-Sketch. Night comes
and color is still not an invention.
The stars stack themselves like poker chips
on one side of the sky. In the morning,
you are still the same loser you were
when the dinosaurs ate each other alive.
When God limps, you understand
why emptiness can be explained
by a simple machine.