Too Big To Fake

by Donald Brandis

a story from an age of disbelief
of a lobster dancing with a porcupine, a badger with a crane
unlikely to the very border of impossible
we are suddenly much older
a teenage zombie morphed to a ragged camel
aged field-gray with a Hubble eye
watching Death approaching from the far side of the universe
as it has through all of the universe's life
not as a foreign agent but as a hidden intimate
like God whose necessary unknowns
like unstoried dark matter and dark energy
are most of what spin the visible universe

even in an age of disbelief
stories arise from the same necessity as God
not in detail but in being
strings of creative compromises of order with novelty
with no need to convince but only to entertain
settle back; we are not here to rule
we are only audience even to our own stories
a lobster dancing with a porcupine, a badger with a crane