"Backyard w/ Lights On" by Josette Urso
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Jonah's Complaint
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"What is this you have done?"
"Listen,
I was hiding at the bottom
of the boat
"when a wind rose up
across the wet
mother of an ocean
"which whipped clear innocence
into a frenzy.
The water curled
"as if before her own breath,
and so I hid,
the child of her punishment.
"And the men were seized
with great fear, not cowardice,
unsubtle Mephistopheles: Leviathan.
"Dear Lord,
I sought the velvet tortures
of your Faust,
"but a Jew
in a heavy sea
exacts the value of his weight,
"so I was tossed
before my gold,
after my cows,
"while the sailors slipped away,
unworthy of my good God's
rapt attention."
Marc Penka 2002
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