Jennifer Jean

Creation Story

There once was a grand Patron who loved His comely Patronne.

She blushed, and shushed Him when He shared their love story
with stable hands, foremen, agricultural specialists,
at every cookout, snowed in evening, or holiday.

As He gestured and expounded, He focused His glare on the children,
Leon and Lucia, who began over the years to act out His words—
hamming it up, and heaving dramatic sighs—as if heroes in a play.

He said,

I knew I was alone
as a being whose nature is to be two-fold, warm.

Then, in empyrean ambles, I stumbled
on a terrestrial ideal, a temporal compliment
and adventure realm—
wherein origin, division, union
over and over again, for a time,
would be possible, pleasurable.

And just as light adores dark, calling dark
by brightening, I burst
from lineal into sphere-vibrations—blooming
infinitely, making space from singularity
with arms wide, widening,
my words tumbling in tempo rubato.

Soon—

loneliness ripened, and I could give
Her everything—my hand
across the crowded room…

'Yes, I will live for you as well,'
 She said,

and suddenly I was Me, in love
before you were even possible,
when noxious gases were just colliding
to form landscapes for your evening strolls…

The Beginning of the Fall, part 1

He gathered all hands,
Launched us into chaotic tanglewood
To hike and sweat,
Cut teeth on peaks men find mind-blowing, or
These days, hopeless.

We cleared His space, shaped an Estate:
Stables, fences, barns, corrals, and
Divine tools—we were pushed
To cherish the function
Of nuts, of bolts. Brule, there must be

Conscious provenance, an archetypal cast… He said.
I hated this

Perfection, sometimes.
He was too striking, too well lit
For the others who trembled, though He persisted in fun.
I was able, I kept up,
And translated His desires, smoothed over
Nerve-racking pranks.

But there is something inimitable
About joy and reciprocity,
About this art…

After each prolific day,
From evening to morning
He'd insist we relax—
Strip flannels off muscle, pitch them overhead,
Jump, all skin and nappy beards,
Into pools of weed and starlight,
Scaring the night game

With echoing yelps. I toiled
To be less myself, but there He was:
The loudest, the real McCoy.

Later, He'd heft my cramped body onto his back,
Patient for the recovery of my humor,
Of all things.

While we slept, He wandered
Basins, tropics, arid wastes,
Making more meaning
Enigmatic to us, His slow beasts.
He conceived the future that fast.

He scouted terrain for too many moons
Leaving me, obliging me, to barely manage
His mechanics' manic back-stabbing,
Or their lust for the love
Life yet to be made in our image.

I could only grind my teeth and try to stand
In his place, whip red-necked grease monkeys
Into shape with a lubricated voice, favors—anything—
To please my Patron. Yet,

After every dusk— disrobed,
About to bed down on straw stuffed cloth—
He placed a warm hand on my neck, and

Our skin burned.

The Beginning of the Fall, part 2

The Patron and the Patronne stood at the head of a long table,
a fire in the grate blazing

behind them as they sang the boundless tale of absolute love
over the heads of seated kindred.

Each duet seemed an improbable solo.
Still, too many heads turned away
from the fire. That's what the people thought at least, "The fire…
it is too bright and stuffy…"

And though the Patron smiled as His voice sunk
from baritone to bass, He noticed the turning
souls, and His sorrow overwhelmed
the melody. Soon, His Beloved alone

breathed the song—Her palm pulsing against His,
nurturing. And, this is how all mothers
heal wounds with kisses; this is why mothers are strong.

Meanwhile, Brule
watched Leon watching Lucia—
her lashes rising then falling, then finally
rising through defensive exhaustion.

She would turn

thirteen at midnight.

A cake was brought in and her Father said,
I can lift you on my shoulders
no longer.

Lucia only heard the candle wicks whisper.
Forgetting to wish,
she blew the flames out.