The first time you came inside me, my body

didn’t know what to do. My gut flooded

full with a water that poured out clean for days.

When Moses struck the stone a second time,

all the people still drank, but God hurled out

a new curse. The thing you need to know

about God is how frantic he is to be unknowable.

When my wife & I thought we were pregnant,

we exodused to the Grand Canyon. At its bottom,

a gray stream trickled over our feet. Our necks

grew stiff from craning back, sun-blind, surrounded

on all sides by what that water had done. Her empty belly

cupped in my palms, I divined names for our changeling

from the desert plants. Sage. Juniper. Nine months later,

we divorced, divvied up the DVDs & silverware.

Moses never did enter the promised land, the only reason

being that he thought he could force God’s hand,

thought that any old stone could quench his thirst.

On the cold porch, I am hushing your wailing son

while you sleep. Daddy, he bawls, Daddy.

He tries to wriggle out of my arms, stretching

towards your warm chest. I purr my love

to a child not mine, hum a lullaby

for this screaming sack of desire.