A Literary Magazine in Support of the Jewish Community

Back to Issue Six

 

Two Poems by Marci Rae Johnson

Viewmaster Slide, Noah and the Ark

              Long ago, people grew so wicked that God was very sad.

 

The ark must be as large as the earth to hold

what has become extinct: the Beautiful Armadillo,

Goff’s Pocket Gopher, the Dire Wolf.

 

Though it hasn’t rained in months,

the sea levels will rise. You will refuse

to wake up in the morning, preferring to ignore

the predictions, the denials of politicians.

 

Anyway, it’s always the end of the world for someone.

Today, you’ve decided, is yours.

 

But how can the Lord regret what he has made?

You, with your belly full of music, your somber eyes,

the way the hummingbird returns with the summer’s heat—

 

and how today, the missing rhinoceros was found

after years of absence.

 

We can’t stop what is about to happen,

but we can refuse to forget,

 

take you along into the sun as it swallows us.

 

 

—for Ben Miranda

Viewmaster Slide, Noah and the Ark II

              As long as the earth endures, / seedtime and harvest, / cold and heat,

              summer and winter, / day and night / will never cease.

              —Genesis 8:22

 

There wasn’t room in the ark for all the animals of the world so the ark

must have been bigger on the inside than out              like the time machine

 

space craft made from a British police box where I’d travel with my friends

to planets that needed heroes and we could be those heroes, not

 

the trampled and oppressed, the misunderstood. The un-

beautiful.

              It doesn’t matter that the rainbow existed before

 

the disembarkment              that there must have been more than one

righteous person in the whole world

                              that Noah got drunk later and lay

 

uncovered in his tent and died like everyone else.

 

War and rumors of war, rape, pillage, and murder              and the president

who’d touch the girl without her permission and never apologize.

 

The Lord has promised that day and night will never cease: So endure.

Walk through the valley.              Go to therapy and take your pills.

 

Drink too many beers and learn to forget.

Marci Rae Johnson

Marci Rae Johnson is a freelance editor and writer. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Image, Moon City Review, Main Street Rag, The MacGuffin, Rhino, The Louisville Review, and 32 Poems, among others. Her most recent book, Basic Disaster Supplies Kit, was published by Steel Toe Books.

 

 

Marci Rae Johnson
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