blueprints.

let's go back to another type
of beginning-- 
the one where
we walk backwards down the street
& watch the houses sink back
into the earth--
this is what it looks like
to take time backwards--
this is another type of beginning--
one where we sit in a
booth at the diner
& watch god walk in & order
the usual short stack of
pancakes with a stout glass
of vibrant orange juice--
in it sinks the sun--
he hangs a rain cloud 
on the coat rack 
in the vestibule--
god has never been a coffee
drinker & from our booth we
watch the airplanes
land & take off out the window--
like always 
you fold the napkin ring
into a plane--
fly it across the table at me--
in this scene 
we've yet to be born but we already 
know we're going to like
black & white milkshakes--
we know i'll get the cherry
before you-- we know that
god is ordering a thin slice
of cheesecake & tapping his 
blue pen on the counter--
he flips over the napkin & begins
to scribble & write &
we become lines-- mouths--
a gaping eternity in
a window & from the
counter of a diner
on the cusp of nothing
god writes the blue print
to what would become our home town--
he wrote the clock tower askew in
the november wind--
the thrash corn in his breath--
the  windowsill i would
drop my hair from--
everything set down in blue lines
bleeding through a napkin
on the counter--
& ever mark is permanent-- 
he flattens down the wrinkles
of his master piece
& glances around the diner to
make sure no one caught him 
in another fit of creation--
it's a contagious addiction
of his--
the angels joke
they should keep him 
away from pens or soon
enough he will have to watch
a whole world--
he tells them he's going for a walk
when he comes to the diner
to write--
it's quiet there other than
the faint hum of a radio station
lulling songs none of us
have had a chance to write yet
& the waitress named julie who
leans up against the counter
& makes herself root beer float
with her lunch--
the chef-- veiled in a 
burst of grease & steam from 
the grill watches god
at work--
he hopes he will have two daughter
& that one of them 
will like his cheesecake
& i am there & so are you
& this is the beginning no one
mentions when we were only
the stain of a blue ball-point
pen-- a oily smudge 
from a short stack of pancakes
& the planes still take off
& we both still want to order
black & white milk shakes
& when the planes take off
they do not yet have a place to
land so they collect like
wasps swarming in the sky
waiting-- waiting
waiting to 
descend--