The light was so bad I made some clouds—
little cotton ***** taped to helium balloons
drifting up to the heavens.
The first were the standard balloon animals:
dogs, sheep, horses, giraffes, lions.
They folded conventionally but
became much more creative creatures
with more cotton piled on.
The orange poodle became a bison,
the sheep a yak, the horse a hippopotamus,
giraffes just puffier and more absurd giraffes,
the lions awesome saber tooth tigers.
I added man, men, woeful enough
that they needed a woman to tell them what to do.
Later I made the men sheep and the women lions.
I gave the dogs rabbit ears.
The sheep were now wolves.
I made the sky ark a canopy
to cover it from the dissolving sun,
a fluffy river to slack its thirst,
filled it with cotton candy gold fish
glittering bottle nose dolphins and ***** whales
echo locating each other’s existence,
populated its banks with palm trees and oaks
to shade all the other animals airy heads.
I created and created until the
creation created itself.
Lions became oaks,
sheep became mountains,
dogs became gods
wanting only attention
and belly rubs,
demanding all cloud creatures
know themselves only through
the smelling of each other’s *****.
It rained the last of the rain,
the last bit of **** left in their bowels,
rained until they could only ****.
I was irritated by the smell.
I was irritated by the noise.
I was irritated by how
they didn’t let me play my piano,
or continue creating my house
or not let me go to bed.
I was locked in place
and couldn’t look back.
I wanted to cover my ears
but my hands were gone.
I wanted to cover my nose
but it had broken, fallen off
into a pillar of salt.
I shouted until someone
or something heard me
and covered my mouth
with a primate hand,
stopped my ears
with a canine paw.
Creation
had stopped my creation
knowing that I hadn’t been satisfied
with what I had done
that very first day
and needed a reset.