lemon zest & lesser gods

this is a love poem for
the gods hesitant to create.

i imagine that the christian
god is loud-- that his sketch boards
take up a lot of room in heaven

always leaving crumpled papers 
& his discarded ball point pens stuck
in the clouds like tulip stems

sometimes others clean up
after him, 

trash bags slung over shoulders 

unfurling his blue prints
on his thighs

some mutter "such brilliance"
"i could never generate like him"

a lesser god discovers the
designs for the lemon
on an afternoon where 
the christian god is busy 
with more than one rainbow

sitting on his folding chair,
knitting needles in hands, 
as he mutters to himself 
red, orange, yellow, green,
blue, indigo, violet--

sometimes he drops a color or two

humans seldom notice, but the
seagulls do & they'll laugh at him
for it

the lesser god turns the fruit 
over in his hands-- examining 
the bright yellow flesh

it reminds him of stop lights
& crossing guards

he feels terrified of
it's intricacies, not wanting
to even cut the lemon open, 

runs a finger nail across the rind
as if the fruit where a lover's shoulders

on days when he feels worthless
he'd often picture his body 
slowly dispersing in small flecks
of light

he'd tell himself that not all
gods have to make worlds to rule over

that some gods scatter themselves quietly

he thinks of the lemon like that:

creates tartness in the zest, taking
a metal grater to the fruit 

he feels wild & genius 

rubbing citrus follicles 
onto his desk, violin bow motion 

there's music, some sort of 
stinging music

collecting the shavings in his
palms he lets them go from
the high cloud 

they fall, broadcasting across
the earth

somewhere i'm sitting at 
a kitchen counter while my mother
asks me to zest the lemon 

over the metal bowl

we're making a bundt cake 
& the pages of the recipe book 
are an iridescent yellow

i keep going past the lemon 
through my hand & across
my bones

marrow & vein & sinew & all

there is no blood or sting 

just the rind of lemons 
& more subtle gods 
than ours