Inside the ark it was at first all white
and green. He seemed to be targeting
the churches with His fire-power;
even out here on the new
fomented sea, a self-annihilating
fury, the atom boom of light-struck spires
and temples echoing as they fell. The lack
of a gap between thunder and
lightning told Noah’s menagerie
that God was on top of them, shouting,
out of control and fit to break his own
fair universe in two. So Noah rolled
into a ball and held what was left
of his breath and the small wet
creature nearest him, a marmot,
as the ark was pushed under
into green and bruise-dark blue.
The giraffe’s puzzled face
spun past on the pivot
of its neck, and even the hippo
couldn’t tell which way was air
and up among the roiling
bubbles. No reasoning
with a creator in that state,
best make like the hedgehog
and wait for him to blow himself out
of the water. And sure enough,
after everything was good
and broken, the air did clear,
and the sky attained a glorious
stained-glass shade of blue
above the calmest
emptiest mirror ever seen
on the face of the deep.
But Noah was not, never
would again be, fooled.