monday, january 12
you have to choose, she said
will the world live, or will you unmake it?
you have the means in your hands
we will wait
so he looked at what they had placed in his palm:
a vast dark shape, expanding constantly
so that he could feel nothingness being created at its edges,
new vacuum and elementary particles
rustling against his fingers so that
cupping the universe in his hand
was like holding a restive hedgehog,
and when he looked deep inside —
faint whorls and splotches of light,
billions of suns birthing and dying
trillions of living beings following in their wake
sweet christ on a cross, he thought,
and then one of the others,
stocky and dark skinned, tossed him something
else: a wreath of sorts, woven out of canes
from some bush or diminuitive tree
later that night, driving home
with a dried out crown of thorns
rattling on his dash
he admitted to himself how easy it would have been
to just set the universe on the ground
and stomp once, hard.