Look at me! Look at me.
I’m clean and shiny.
I think if I grew my beard out longer
you might mistake me for Moses.
I’m a good person.
You might even think I can save you
like those desert wanderers looking at Moses.
I’ve never parted seas
but I’ve crushed hearts
with the blunt end of axed words.
I once was so good I stood
at the top of a small mountain
at a podium made of soap stone
and like a guru with a microphone
I offered my advice on raising children
to my mother below
a pile of laundry and dishes and lunches
in a hut made of windows cooking for my sister.
I’ve never roused plagues
but I’ve destroyed women
with the pupils of my eyes.
I once was so in love
I gave my heart to woman.
There are parts of a heart
that have serpent roots that cut
through the earth and if you follow
their maniac winding
you will get to a quiet iron chest
locked with a rusted spy-hole
and when you go to look and put your ear
to the still heavy metal
and listen there will be—
I think she heard some kind of creature
sulking like a bull dozer
excavating God’s image off itself.
I think it stared at her like a beast.
Moses once lead the Israelites to a rock
with the people milling and raging beneath.
God wanted to give them water freely
and without guilt and Moses in a hot fury struck the rock
like he wanted to strike all the people
like he had struck the Egyptian long ago.
While he buried him in the sand
he could not save them.
I think the first draft of this was written on a Sunday in 2008 or 2009 in Amherst, MA.
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