First Love

After God created love he felt

himself swooning. “What is this?”

he cried out to Mrs. God.

“What have I done?

Is it a kind of music?”

“It bears a strong resemblance,”

she said softly, watching the warm sea

begin to rise and fall, as though

longing for the moon.

“Take slow, deep breaths,” she advised,

“and it will pass.”

But it didn’t. All day God wandered

in Eden, on the verge of weeping.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil

was in full bloom. He’d made it

self-pollinating, but now he changed

his mind and decided that to fruit,

a second tree must be planted nearby.

“Close, but not too close,”

Mrs. God, the horticulturalist, advised.

“The bees will find it.”

Another evening, glorious among the clouds.

She was humming, mending something,

when God touched her shoulder.

“Yes,” she said, smiling. “Yes,

it was a good day.”