—COME ON, BABY, THIS LAUGH’S ON ME

  

The Dam

 

My friend says they know 

that song, that poem, that author, 

how the world will end and when. 

They know absolutely everything.

Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, 

it’s hard to believe in God 

when you’re not dying-- 

so much mystery after all,

with those nagging questions 

like the perversity of free will 

and falling fruit. 

My friend says they died too 

same way my mother did, 

now also tinder and dust coating a casket, 

says they were there when 

the wall fell, when Joan burned at the stake,

when Jesus rode a gurney of light 

through the C-section of belief. 

Who am I to doubt 

when I’ve yet to learn or experience 

what they so easily pluck 

from their lap and lips 

as if answers are cheap and everywhere?

But I do know that on a 

lake somewhere near here, 

a beaver swims toward the dam that

some fool dissembled thinking they knew 

a better way to keep rough water at bay, 

how to hold trust intact, 

even when it’s been gone for years.