on a saturday evening god tries to forget she has children

takes off her shoes & leaves them
by the shoreline. she thinks of acorns 
& how they came to her in a dream.
knots of life. everything in a way begins
as a fist. she tells herself, "i am a zephyr.
a tumble of wind." walks across 
the foreheads of clouds. plugs her ears 
with wayward feathers until
the world sounds blue & grey. soft to the touch.
she imagines walking until there is
no world beneath her
or above her. just glass & grapes. she thinks,
"maybe they would get on without me."
all of their voices come in waves. crashing.
"please, please, please," they say & she
can only pluck one tongue from the torrent.
now, she finds a hem where her universe
meets the next. there she sits beneath
an old fig tree. the tree sings & she wishes 
there was no tree at all. she doesn't want
to be reminded of her work. 
creation is a lovely burden, she thinks.
everything is a child. everything a kind of need.
she wants to be in a place someone else
has furnished. she wants a voice 
to shout down from above & say,
"here is your house. here is your life."
she wonders if gods can retire. she knows
they cannot. creation is a circuit of power.
always the tether between her & each heart 
& root & gills. master of a thousand leashes.
she wants to eat ice cream. cool & slightly melted
so she does with a tiny silver spoon.
sits with her back to the universe.
pretends, for just that night,
that it is a mobile or a diarama 
& not a sea of teeth & longing.