by Nate Levine
What did it look like
as a process?
“In the beginning…”
crossed out, a big
X. No,
“In beginnings…” All
beginnings
are awkward – smiles quivering
in lack of confidence.
Words are
beds,
memories cast
out, deep into
minds that don’t want to remember
sleepless nights and screaming
cigarettes
Words are
chains. They devour scabs
on ankles.
Millions of poets,
stars decked out
in jumpsuits.
In the beginning first,
light. Screaming light,
hospital-grade halogen bulbs
and red laser printers.
Cruise missiles and crying.
Revision, adding
freckles
and candles.
Gospels of women
dancing,
flipping like hair preying
on nervous shoulders. Planets rejoice
on mobiles, babies laugh and colors metallic
as ink,
Then the holocausts,
the incessant meddling, geneticists
calling
into existence
hurricanes and second
judgment.
What was left out? What terror
left in, behemoth and leviathan?
“In the beginning,” or is it
simply in “beginnings,”
there was
a poet,
and he used
a word to build
the world
over and
over again.