he wakes in the middle of the night to ask me if he could be better than god.
According to legend, god created all things: the matcha that congeals in our

unwashed glasses :: the waterbugs that crawl from tub drain :: the junegrass
we choke with rubbersoles :: the pigs that died for our dinner, the drugs that

swell them. god made the lymph nodes :: made the magnolias that eyelash
the yards on the rich folk’s lawns :: the atlas moth :: the robin’s tweet battered

throat :: the plastic fusing with rock on Brazilian coast, the waters that lap there
and the turtles that migrate their eggs through turquoise sand.      The silkworms

that siphoned from themselves my bonnet, god made them. god made him—
made his hair black as the smell of brand-new tires :: made him a voice always

crackling like a Christmas candle :: made his eyes canyon, made them brown.
‍Better at what? Into the dayblack cavern of my ear, he says making.