The Yoke

Somebody’s yoke around my neck—
how can I think about God now
and what a kvetch he became in Genesis?

He walked there calling for Adam.
Then the verses fell down like a ladder on the dirt
smashing all that had been planted.
Adam stopped to be yelled at

but the actual Adam was off somewhere else
dancing and fornicating with Eve.

About all the pain and suffering that followed—
was it worth the neat rows of vegetables,
each with a picture-name?

I’m more interested in the snake in the dust
and the shimmering pyramids.
The goddess that came before them
shaking her stiff serpent at the tree.

I’m as tired of the One Dad God as he was with his trying children.
Let the cypresses be trees in my hungry city,
let the dusty roads be my littered streets.
God, this agreement to plow and to plead—
it’s enough already, don’t you think?
And this yoke—take it.
Go on without me
rearranging yourself, green into red
into blue. I feel better already.
I forgive you too.