Poetry

Edison Jennings

Particle Theory

I’m looking for the key to fire-up my 2002 Ford Escort.
It has to be around somewhere. Smart people in Switzerland
are looking for the particle God used to fire-up the cosmos.
They think it has be around somewhere. I need a key
to start my car, and God needed a particle to start
the greatest story ever told—the only story ever told,
come to think of it. And no artsy in media res for God;
he starts with a bang—something like my Escort,
only more impressive. I suppose God didn’t have to do it,
fire-up the cosmos, that is. He could have kept it parked.
Such luxury is not mine, however. I have to go to work,
and, unlike God, I won’t be finished after six days,
followed by a 13.798 x 10⁹ year vacation,
though, supposedly, he calls into the office from time to time
just in case we need anything, as, for example, I do—to wit:
sex with Susan Acharine, the accountant three desks down from me.
But she’s sleeping with Henry R. Hotchkiss the III,
of the Richmond Hotchkiss branch, thank you very much,
heir apparent to Hotchkiss Investments and Vice President
of Hotchkiss Emerging Market Capital Funds. Henry—
Hank to his pals, which number does not include me—
sports a soul-patch and drives a red Italian number
capable of achieving lightspeed velocity in nano seconds.
You should see Hank parallel park that thing—
not so much parallel park as parallel swoop, like a raptor
with bunny on the menu. I pointed this out to Susan,
but she was not inclined to explicate the obvious.
I also pointed out that God can parallel park a universe.
Susan reminded me that I can’t even parallel park a Ford Escort.
All of this I relate to my priest, who tells me we are born to suffer.
He also tells me I don’t really need to have sex with Susan;
I just want to have sex with Susan. And amen to that.
Meanwhile, I’m looking for my car key so I can drive to work
and not get fired by Hank The Crank, who wants his distressingly virile father,
Hank The Bank, to croak before he makes an honest woman
out of Kari The Cosmo Model, a fortune hunting bitch,
according to Susan The Acutely Attractive who doesn’t need
or even want me. And all God needed was a lousy particle.
here’s some consolation in that, or so I want to think.

Loose Change

Loose change is the leaving of a day’s wage,
6:00 pm leftovers tossed on a kitchen table,
not enough to buy a meal or even a drink,
but if the pile gets big enough, maybe a lottery ticket
that comes up nada ripped in half and lost
in the scattered shine your kid thinks is a lot
of money, a lot of hope you let him hold,
a jingle in hand, like so much loose change.