Al Maginnes: God in Retirement

The sand here is dark, stained
	by eons of tides, climates, embers

of footprints trailed by humans who,
	intent on self-immolation, find ways

to make their small prints larger
	as they race for the first apocalypse

they can find. Perhaps a shorter visit
	to the tropical universe or the one

built after this one, the one still stocked
	with breathable air, with liquors

able to give pleasure to a god. 	
	Still, this model survives, proof

of some self-preservation in the populace.
	A little more wine before the sisters

of the scarlet moon perform their ritual
	dance again. Still. There are mine shafts

collapsed like veins, houses burning by
	the acre. Right now a man is paying

more money for a gold chain than
	my neighbors earn in a year.

He’ll wear it once or twice, toss it
	in a drawer of shiny things he’ll sell

for four hundred bucks on a day when
	those few bills mean more than all the money

he let slip from him back when it came in
	too fast to bother counting. 

The first shine from that trinket burns 
	in the back of his eyes, climbs out of his gaze

into the storm of atoms that spark the universe
	and takes its place among the aspirations

illustrated by the sisters of the scarlet moon, 
	who pour more wine, try to soothe god into sleep,

leaving us with our self-made fires to burn our wounds
	clean, to illuminate our feet as we try

again to follow the dance we will
	die trying to master.

Copyright 2022 Al Maginnes

Al Maginnes’s many poetry collections include The Beasts that Vanish (Blue Horse, 2021).