I AM NO ODDSMAN

Do you know who took that photo? I did. I took it and
I love it. Don’t you? Do you know who dug this canal?

I did. I dug it and I love it. Do you know who pointed
that light into the sun, who walked across the ice,

who cleaned the lake, who ate the metal shards, who’s been here and there?
I did all of this and I love all of it. I did all of this and

I planted a garden. I planted a garden of windshields.
That makes no sense. I bought a garden of windshields in which

I planted a pond of singing catfish. I relax in the magnified light
of the curved panes, and I listen to the catfish swallow rats.

They are not really catfish, they are diamonds. Diamonds from Equatorial
Guinea. Diamonds with which I clothe an insurgency,

with which I trim my glassy garden. The pond water
is amonia and my shit has turned black.

I offer you the fruits of my garden in good will. I offer them to you
on a truck bed. I offer them to you on a seven year old.

I offer them to you on a waiting list. I hope you enjoy them each.
My garden is growing. Imagine that. I have windshields

over two thousand feet tall. I have other windshields over three
thousand feet tall. I myself am more than five thousand feet tall.

As I look over my rows of windshields, and my amonia pond full
of hungry, singing diamonds, all feeding on rats, I can see the flea

market and I can hear You bartering with the Salesman over how much longer
You can have It and how You are going to pay Him for having It that long.

The Salesman looks like You and Me, One could say that We are in His image.
One could also say that He is in Our image. Another could say that This all sounds

like soft science, that there is not the incessant clicking
of the harder sciences. Really they are not rats, they are cooked hams,

each marbled with a peculiar pattern of fat such that
there is a ham for each apostle’s likeness.

Floating in quorum, the hams confer in the clear amonia
amidst thousand foot tall windshields and gardener,

each ham pink with a different expression as befitting their ministries:
Peter holding a chisel that is pointed at You, James tossing the pelota,

Paul making detailed notes upon a sheepskin as to when yesterday was,
and what time It is after all of This. The disciples take a vote

as to what It was the Salesman meant when He said there were two Others,
a Manager and a Prostitute, inside of Him but outside of Him.
The results are as follows:

Up from the bottom of the planted pond,
through the apostle hams and singing catfish,
into the downpour.