Our God of Gumball Machines
who had a sun and 
witnessed the birth of all the blue planets

Did I ever tell you what quarters are? 
I'm sure you have
heard his pocket change clamoring
when our God walks
the curb of the horizon like
a hitch-hiker each night--
arms butterfly balance beams-- 
this God who
thrives on rides from strangers--
I know you've heard the clatter
and clang in each foot-fall-- 
snapped your fingers to his steps 
and wondered why God has so many quarters.
Wondered if he likes Gumball machines--
Sing the coins from your living room 
and spend every cent
of the hour as 
He takes His pilgrimage and 
His hum drawing darkness and star over a day.
You pick him up in your blue jeep and he
tells you to take him to 
the edge of the woods again--
you give him your spare change
and he laughs at how the quarters
feel in his endless pockets emptying
into the Marianas Trench--
stack and stacks and stacks 
of quarters and pence and yen 
and rupees and pesos and 
and shillings and drachma that
he has been saving for gumballs. 
Before there was dark
Before there was light
There was only God and himself 
and the Gumball machine--
it blinked neon in the corner
of nowhere and it irritated God
to the point where he had to sleep with 
his back facing the other side of forever.
Somehow he always woke up staring at it
and it's empty shoots and slides 
The worst part was its bulbous head swirling
with unborn planets that mocked
our God whose eyes hurt 
from lack of dark and light--
he said to the machine
Give me a sun 
and the Gumball machine
laughed and glowed brighter
so our God could not sleep-- but
he did not give up. He kept vigil 
over the Gumball machine-- listened
to the neon patterns-- counted every single orb
until he had named each one and all
their moons and all their solar systems--
He said
Give me a sun
and when the machine laughed
this time God broken his
arms into quarters and pence 
and rupees and drachmas and fed 
each piece of himself
to the greedy creature
one by one by one by one
He said 
Let me have a SUN
He said
I will have a SUN
and the machine lurched and the slides
pulsed and pulsed and stretched 
and hurled down
a glowing piece of light for
God to pick up in his
hand-- still warm and soft.
He put the sun in his mouth and 
blew a pink bubble from which he 
would destroy the forever nothing.
And the Gumball machine cried and scorned
Him as it felt all the planets falling
from it's skull-- come Jupiter
come Mars come Moon come Neptune
come planets quiet and X-named--
God worked his jaw for seven days
and seven nights until each one
was hanging where there used to 
be forever nothing.
At last in his palm he held the
blue one-- delicate and quiet 
and sweet like the nights when He used
to sleep away from neon-- God
watched earth born from the swinging metal
door of the Gumball machine and he said
We will all one day laugh about
this-- you and me and the Gumball machine
But now let me have a blue planet 
and another
and another
and let them find me on the curbside
of the horizon and in the sun. 
and let them have a sun.