Pull My Finger

A fat balding angel with curly black hair
and jolly red cheeks
presented me with a jeweled egg
which pulsated inside with colored lights.
The egg-jewel was alive and
dripping with creation.
The angel and I molded men and women
that jumped from our fingers still wet.
Through sugar-glazed windows
I watched them scamper and butt heads.
"Shouldn't I give them some sort of instruction?"
I asked. "What should they do?"
"Why, anything they want," the angel replied.
"Well, somebody should tell them something," I said
and stuck my head out the window.
"Behave!" I shouted,
then sat down to eat my pudding.
Time passed, and a glance outside
revealed the word "behave"
written on every rock and tree
in a hundred different languages.
The people were beating, raping, shooting, stabbing,
torturing, dismembering and burning one another.
"This creation business isn't all it's cracked up to be,"
I told the angel.
"Try not to take yourself too seriously,"
laughed the angel, eyes twinkling,
as he lit up a cigar.

David W. Aronson
July, 1999