two

no one tells the truth about the ark.
the animals did not come in twos.
instead, they rushed. five giraffes 
& three turtles. a woman with the face
of a cliffside. noah was actually not even
on the ark. instead, he stood outside.
not a martyr but something else.
a tired man whose hands had long ago
turned into voles. they tell us the creatures
came two by two because the story
is both gender & end-times propaganda. 
there were no bulls on the ark.
the cows had to invent a way to survive.
in the dripping after-times
we carve what we must from our bodies.
god did not even mean to flood the earth. 
no one means to flood the earth
but then it is coming & we are the horrible 
& the too much. noah was his last ditch effort
to make a story out of a mistake.
there will always be noahs. hammers 
& nails. the belly of a great vessel 
that somehow can never carry quite enough.
what the story also doesn't say is that
he built most of the ark in the rain.
thunder & hail. a donkey who kept
coming back to bring more wood. the frogs
who sang in the downpour. there was no order
to the boarding. creatures arrived as he laid planks.
he did not have a family. just a love for the future
that he would not even find himself in. 
a final latch. the wind tilting the trees. 
five dogs. a haggard old person. a two-headed goat
& an intersex deer, antlers still velvet.