A dove hangs from the ceiling.
God: the rod
that holds its head
in place. Plastic hummingbirds,
acrylic fish. Adam beside
Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Blessed are the sheep
that look like sheep.
Blessed, the screws that hold
the trees upright.
Eve stands golden haired,
dusted at night
like the chairs.
Rubber jellyfish, Styrofoam stone.
Moonlight swings
from its black cord. Blessed,
the sow that nurses
nothing, her hammered eyeball
lit with a quiet calling.
Faith’s fire,
doubt’s smoke-filled haze.
The hawk with its feathers
perfectly sculpted,
dry rags
that fill the lion’s chest easily
forgotten—
or set ablaze.
Bruce Snider is the author of the poetry collections, Paradise, Indiana, winner of the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Prize, and The Year We Studied Women, winner of the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, Threepenny Review, and Best American Poetry 2012. A former Wallace Stegner fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, he’s currently an assistant professor at the University of San Francisco.