Someone is reading my book
        aloud. Is it God?

        Does God read?
        And the voice-

        a woman's voice but not
        certainly not

        my mother's who is dead.
        Anyway isn't God a guy?

        But if God's not reading my book
        who is?

        Maybe it's God's mother
        who reads the Lives, while He

        works the Malls
        pretending blindness.

        My big beautiful book!

        And the writing on the flyleaf
        isn't mine: Yea though I walk

        through the valley-some other Jed
        or Jeb or Jub, wrote that. Nevertheless

        the book exists. And surely someday God
        will sit by the river

        and open it. Dusk
        will fall, the stars burn. Well,

        he'll say, aloud
        and throw his face

        in his hands.

Copyright © Jed Allen, 2001.  All Rights Reserved.