“GERTRUDEGertrude Appleman, 1901-1976God is all-knowing, all-present, and almighty. --A Catechism of Christian DoctrineI wish that all the peoplewho peddle Godcould watch my mother die:could see the skin andgristle weighing onlyseventy-nine, every stubbornpound of flesh a smalldeath.I wish the people who peddle Godcould see her young,lovely in gardens andbeautiful in kitchens, and could watchthe hand of God slowlytwisting her knees and fingerstill they gnarled and knotted, settling infor thirty years of pain.I wish the people who peddle Godcould see the lightningof His cancer stabbingher, that small frametensing at every shock,her sweet contralto scratchy withthe Lord’s infection: Philip,I want to die.I wish I had them gathered round,those preachers, popes, rabbis,imams, priests – everypious shill on God’s payroll – and Iwould pull the sheets from my mother’s brittle body,and they would fall on their knees at her bedsideto be forgiven all theirfaith.”

“Darwin's ArkThe fact is, I know those ancestors floating through my sleep: an animal that breathed water, had a great swimming tail, an imperfect skull, undoubtedly hermaphrodite . . . I slide through all the oceans with these kin, salt water pulsing in my veins, and aeons follow me into the trees: a hairy, tailed quadruped, arboreal in its habits, scales slipping off my flanks . . . . I have sailed the ancients seas to come to the bones of Megatherium. . . . The thing I want to father most is the rarest, most difficult thing of all. Though knee-deep in these rivers of innocent blood, I want to be - a decent animal.”

“I wished that my hand would work again," I tell him when he climbs in after me. it was my first wish and the only one that mattered."I wished my mother was here tonight, which is stupid, because it's an impossible wish." He shrugs and turns to me, drowning the smile that cracks me every time."It's not stupid to want to see her again.""It wasn't so much that I wanted to see her again, " he says, looking at me with the depth of more than seventeen years in his eyes. "I wanted her to see you.”

“DAYS ONE THROUGH SIX, ETC.You keep on asking me that –“Which day was the hardest?”Blockheads! They were all hard –And of course, since I’m omnipotent,they were all easy.It was Chaos, to begin with. Can you imaginePrimeval Chaos? Of course you can’t.How long had it been swirling around out there?Forever.How long had I been there?Longer than that.It was a mess, that’s what it was. Chaos isRocky. Fuzzy. Slippery. Prickly.As scraggly and obstreperous as the endless behindof an infinite jackass. Shove on it anywhere,it gives, then slips in behind you,like smog, like lava, like slag.I’m telling you, chaos is – chaotic.You see what I was up against. Whocould make a world out of that muck?I could, that’s who – landfrom water, light from dark, and so on.It might seem like a piece of cakenow that it’s done, butback then, without a blueprint,without a set of instructions, without a committee,could you have created a firmament?Of course there were bugs in the process,grit in the gears, blips, bloopers –bringing forth grass and trees on Day Threeand not making sunlight until Day Four, that,I must say, wasn’t my best move.And making the animals and vegetables beforethere was any rain whatsoever – well,anyone can have a bad day.Even Adam, as it turned out, wasn’t such a greatidea – those shifty eyes, the alibis,blaming things on his wife – I mean,it set a bad example. How could heexpect that little toddler, Cain,to learn correct family valueswith a role model like him?And then there was the nasty squabbleOver the beasts and birds.OK, I admit I told Adamto name them, but – Platypus?Aardvark? Hippopotamus?Let me make one thing perfectly clear –he didn’t get that gibberish from Me.No, I don’t need a planet to fall on Me,I know something about subtext.He did it to irritate Me, just plainspite – and did I need the aggravation?Well, as you know, things went from badto worse, from begat to begat,father to son, the evil fruitof all that early bile. So nextthere was narcissism, then bigotry,then jealousy, rage, vengeance!And finally I realized, the spawn of Adamhad become exactly like – Me.No Deity with any self-respectwould tolerate that kindof competition, so what could I do?I killed them all, that’s what!Just as the Good Book says,I drowned man, woman, and child, likeso many cats. Oh, I saved a fewfor restocking, Noah and his crew,the best of the lot, I thought. Butnow you’re back to your old tricks again,just about due for another good ducking,or maybe a giant barbecue.And I’m warning you, if I have to do it again,there won’t be any survivors, not evena cockroach! Then,for the first time since it was PrimevalChaos, the world will be perfect –nobody in it but Me.”

“I wished my mother was here tonight, which is stupid, because it’s an impossible wish.” He shrugs and turns to me, drowning the smile that cracks me every time. “It’s not stupid to want to see her again.” “It wasn’t so much that I wanted to see her again,” he says, looking at me with the depth of more than seventeen years in his eyes. “I wanted her to see you.”

“Tirelessly they flew on and on, and tirelessly she kept pace. She felt a fierce joy possessing her, that she could command these immortal presences. And she rejoiced in her blood and flesh, in the rough pine bark she felt next to her skin, in the beat of her heart and the life of all her senses, and in the hunger she was feeling now, and in the presence of her sweet-voiced bluethroat dæmon, and in the earth below her and the lives of every creature, plant and animal both; and she delighted in being of the same substance as them, and in knowing that when she died her flesh would nourish other lives as they had nourished her.”

“Three Haiku, Two Tanka(Kyoto)CONFIDENCE (after Bashō) Clouds murmur darkly, it is a blinding habit— gazing at the moon. TIME OF JOY (after Buson) Spring means plum blossoms and spotless new kimonos for holiday whores. RENDEZVOUS (after Shiki) Once more as I wait for you, night and icy wind melt into cold rain. FOR SATORI In the spring of joy, when even the mud chuckles, my soul runs rabid, snaps at its own bleeding heels, and barks: “What is happiness?” SOMBER GIRL She never saw fire from heaven or hotly fought with God; but her eyes smolder for Hiroshima and the cold death of Buddha.”