Poem of the Week:One Universe Too Many, Mitch Grabois

Ed Note: I'm so sorry this wasn't up on Friday. I had a lot of things going on and forgot to schedule it. 

The alternative universe
in which you’re not a colossal disappointment,
where is it now?
It rode the Diphtheria Nebula
slid into the Oppenheimer Black Hole and hid there,
rested in perfect silence
before disappearing

A colossal disappointment ,
your ears ring with parental echoes
as do mine

My patriarch said:
I can read you like a book
and all the pages are blank

Then, as if I didn’t get it, an interpretation:
You’re a bum and you’ll always be a bum
his finger in the air as if he were reciting from the Talmud

Mira:
I let mold grow on my organic eggs
I invite quadruplet cats to lick my cheeks with their rough tongues
until the chafing mimics my Roseola
I do yoga in the rubble of the necropolis without a mat

all this to show you that
Perfection is not possible
and whatever you’re comparing yourself to
is a construct with no reality

Religions of perfection betray us
leave our lungs scarred as if ravaged by pneumonia
leave our blood infected

“God” is the arch-villain in an archaic mythology
“Jesus” is all the sex we’ve denied ourselves

On a Greek archipelago, the risen Jesus and the goddess Isis
have riotous sex
until the feta mountains crumble
and the ouzo and retsina
in their abandoned goblets
ignite