Do Paradise Last

This appeared in Orbis.

Departing them, He shut the door. Both Angels
and patriarchs whined something fierce. The prophets
yelled, "Doom!" and spilled their ashes on the floor.

The First of Us looked calmly out the window,
trusting he'd do a better job than God.
If He knew what came next, perhaps He'd share.

God Himself, all 3 of Him, essayed back
in His recliner, checking what They'd done.
"It's good," He said. "Did We make Sin O'Death?"

"Depends," said Raphael. "He wrote us down,
so He made you, but You made Him and knew
what He would write when He was just a sprat,

a nod, wink, wink. You knew it before Time."
"Still," said God, "We're in, He's out. We don't know
what We were thinking. Uncreate Him, shall We?"

"Can You do that?" asked Adam. "Can You make
a rock so big You can't remember why?"
God hates a riddle, makes up His own answers,

and, anyway, the scansion coming clear
to His blind eyes, the Author of them all
returned and shut them up and sent them out

to view creation as if they had breathed
their first iambic transpiration, world
before them where to choose, and they were His.