is omnipotent
like the novelist is:
from Adam and Eve
to Japheth, Shem, and Ham,
many of his
best characters
just "got away" from him.
*
Religious conviction
is math
without numbers,
gravity
that doesn't attract;
it's all the little things
without their preponderance—
as if
the breadth
of the next world
could outstrip
this one's
impermanence.
*
The number of galaxies
is now thought
to be so numerous
as to border on
the commomplace
and conjure up
the frivolous;
points of light
so ubiquitous, they're used
to end independent clauses.
The grains of sand
in Saturn's rings
and the surplus of it
which fringes our beaches
number infinitely more
than all the humans
who have ever lived,
but still less
than all the words
we collect
to fill in the littlest
awkward pauses.
