Jed ALLEN

THE BOOK

Someone is reading my book
aloud. Is it God?

Does God read?
And the voice-

a woman's voice but not
certainly not

my mother's who is dead.
Anyway isn't God a guy?

But if God's not reading my book
who is?

Maybe it's God's mother
who reads the Lives, while He

works the Malls
pretending blindness.

My big beautiful book!

And the writing on the flyleaf
isn't mine: Yea though I walk

through the valley-some other Jed
or Jeb or Jub, wrote that. Nevertheless

the book exists. And surely someday God
will sit by the river

and open it. Dusk
will fall, the stars burn. Well,

he'll say, aloud
and throw his face

in his hands.

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